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— 

MALISE RUTHVEN 

WITH AZIM N A N I 1 



J 

- ' f 



HISTORICAL 

ATLAS a ISLAM 




HISTORICAL 

ATLAS OF ISLAM 



ISLAM 




MALI S E RUTH VEN 

WITH AZIM N ANJI 



Historical Atlas of Islam (Malise Ruthven, Azim Nanji) 

ISBN: 0674013859 

Author: Malise Ruthven, Azim Nanji 

Publisher: Harvard University Press (May 28, 2004) 

Pages: 208 Binding: Hardcover w/ dust jacket 



Description from the publisher: Among the great civilizations 
of the world, Islam remains an enigma to Western readers. 

Now, in a beautifully illustrated historical atlas, noted scholar of 

religion Malise Ruthven recounts the fascinating and important history of the 

Islamic world. 



From the birth of the prophet Muhammed to the independence of post-Soviet 
Muslim states in Central Asia, this accessible and informative atlas explains the 
historical evolution of Islamic societies. Short essays cover a wide variety of 
themes, including the central roles played by sharia (divine law) and fiqh (jurisprudence); philosophy; arts and 
architecture; the Muslim city; trade, commerce, and manufacturing; marriage and family life; tribal distributions; 
kinship and dynastic power; ritual and devotional practices; Sufism; modernist and reformist trends; the European 
domination of the Islamic world; the rise of the modern national state; oil exports and arms imports; and Muslim 
populations in non-Muslim countries, including the United States. 

Lucid and inviting full-color maps chronicle the changing internal and external boundaries of the Islamic world, 
showing the principal trade routes through which goods, ideas, and customs spread. Ruthven traces the impact of 
various Islamic dynasties in art and architecture and shows the distribution of sects and religious minorities, the 
structure of Islamic cities, and the distribution of resources. Among the book's valuable contributions is the 
incorporation of the often neglected geographical and environmental factors, from the Fertile Crescent to the 
North African desert, that have helped shape Islamic history. 

Rich in narrative and visual detail that illuminates the story of Islamic civilization, this timely atlas is an 
indispensable resource to anyone interested in world history and religion. 



About the Author - 

Malise Ruthven is a former editor with the BBC Arabic Service and World Service in London and is the author of 
Islam in the World and Islam: A Very Short Introduction. Azim Nanji is Professor and Director of the Institute of 
Ismaili Studies and visiting professor at Stanford University. 








Historical 
Atlas of the 



Islamic 

World 



Historical 
Atlas of the 

Islamic 

World 




Malise Ruthven 

with 

Azim Nanji 



Book Copyright © Cartographica Limited 2004 
Text Copyright © Malise Ruthven 2004 



All rights reserved. 



THOMSON 



— *— 
GALE 



Historical Atlas of the Islamic World 
eBook version 

Published by Cartographica 

Originally published in print format in 2004. 

In this informative and beautifully illustrated atlas, noted 
scholar of religion Malise Ruthven recounts the fascinating 
and important history of the Islamic world. 



Short and concise essays cover a wide variety of themes 
including philosophy; arts and architecture; the Muslim city; 
trade, commerce and manufacturing; marriage and family 
life; ritual and devotional practices; the rise of the modern 
national state; oil exports and arms imports; and much more. 



Rich in narrative and visual detail, the Atlas is of critical 
importance to both students and anyone seeking insight into 
the Islamic world, history and culture. 



• Published/ Released: October 2005 
. ISBN 13: 9780955006616 

. ISBN 10: 0955006619 

• Product number: 225062 

• Page count: 208 pp. 



CONTENTS 



Introduction 6 

Foundational Beliefs and Practices 14 

Geophysical Map of the Muslim World 16 

Muslim Languages and Ethnic Groups 20 

Late Antiquity Before Islam 24 

Muhammad’s Mission and Campaigns 26 

Expansion of Islam to 750 28 

Expansion 751-1700 30 

Sunnis, Shiites, and Khariji 660-c. 1000 34 

Abbasid Caliphate under Harun al-Rashid 36 

Spread of Islam, Islamic Law, and Arabic Language 38 

Successor States to 1100 40 

The Saljuq Era 44 

Military Recruitment 900-1800 46 

Fatimid Empire 909-1171 50 

Trade Routes c. 700-1500 52 

Crusader Kingdoms 56 

Sufi Orders 1100-1900 58 

Ayyubids and Mamluks 62 

The Mongol Invasion 64 

Maghreb and Spain 650-1485 66 

Subsaharan Africa — East 70 

Subsaharan Africa — West 72 

Jihad States 74 

The Indian Ocean to 1499 76 

The Indian Ocean 1500-1900 80 

Rise of the Ottomans to 1650 84 

The Ottoman Empire 1650-1920 88 

Iran 1500-2000 92 

Central Asia to 1700 94 

India 711-1971 96 

Russian Expansion in Transcaucasia and Central Asia 102 

Expansion of Islam in Southeast Asia c. 1500—1800 106 

British, French, Dutch, and Russian Empires 108 

Nineteenth-Century Reform Movements 110 

Modernization of Turkey 112 

The Muslim World under Colonial Domination c. 1920 116 



Balkans, Cyprus, and Crete 1500-2000 118 

Muslim Minorities in China 122 

The Levant 1500-2002 124 

Prominent Travelers 128 

Britain in Egypt and Sudan in the 19th Century 132 

France in North and West Africa 136 

Growth of the Hajj and Other Places of Pilgrimage 138 

Expanding Cities 142 

Impact of Oil in the 20th Century 146 

Water Resources 148 

The Arms Trade 150 

Flashpoint Southeast Asia 1950-2000 152 

Flashpoint Iraq 1917-2003 154 

Afghanistan 1840-2002 156 

Arabia and the Gulf 1839-1950 158 

Rise of the Saudi State 160 

Flashpoint Israel— Palestine 162 

Flashpoint Gulf 1950-2003 164 

Muslims in Western Europe 166 

Muslims in North America 168 

Mosques and Places of Worship in North America 170 

Islamic Arts 172 

Major Islamic Architectural Sites 176 

World Distribution of Muslims 2000 180 

World Terrorism 2003 184 

Muslim Cinema 188 

Internet Use 190 

Democracy, Censorship, Human Rights, and Civil Society 192 
Modern Islamic Movements 194 

Chronology 196 

Glossary 200 

Further Reading 203 

Acknowledgments and Map List 204 

Index 205 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Introduction 



Since September 11th 2001, barely a day pas- 
ses without stories about Islam — the religion 
of about one-fifth of humanity — appearing in 
the media. The terrorists who hijacked four 
American airliners and flew them into the 
World Trade Center in New York and the 
Pentagon near Washington killed some three 
thousand people. This unleashed a “War on 
Terrorism” by the United States and its allies, 
leading to the removal of two Muslim govern- 
ments, one in Afghanistan and the other in 
Iraq. It raised the profile of Islam throughout 
the world as a subject for analysis and discus- 
sion. The debates, in newspaper columns and 
broadcasting studios, in cafes, bars, and 
homes, have been heated and passionate. 
Questions that were previously discussed in 
the ratified atmosphere of academic confer- 
ences or graduate seminars have entered the 
mainstream of public consciousness. What is 
the “law of jihad”? How is it that a “religion 
of peace” subscribed to by millions of ordi- 
nary, decent believers, can become an ideology 
of hatred for an angry minority? Why has 
Islam after the fall of communism become so 
freighted with passionate intensity? Or, to use 
the title of a best-selling essay by Bernard 
Lewis, the doyen of Orientalist scholars, 
“What went wrong?” with Islamic history, 
with its relationship with itself, and with the 
modern world ? 

Such questions are no longer academic, but 
are arguably of vital concern to most of the 
peoples living on this planet. Few would deny 
that Islam, or some variation thereof — 
whether distorted, perverted, corrupted, or 
hijacked by extremists — has become a force to 
be reckoned with, or at least a label attached to 
a phenomenon with menacing potentialities. 
Numerous atrocities have been attributed to 
and claimed by Islamic extremists, both before 
and since 9/11, causing mayhem and carnage 
in many of the world’s cities and tourist desti- 



nations: Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Mombasa, 
Riyadh, Casablanca, Bali, Tunisia, Jakarta, 
Bombay (Mumbhai), Istanbul and Madrid. 
The list grows longer, the casualties mount. 
The responses of people and their govern- 
ments are angry and perplexed. The far-reach- 
ing consequences of these responses for inter- 
national peace and security should be enough 
to convince anyone (and not just the media edi- 
tors who mold public consciousness to fit their 
advertisers’ priorities) that extreme manifesta- 
tions of Islam are setting the agenda for argu- 
ment and action in the twenty-first century. 

Muslims living in the West and in the 
growing areas of the Muslim world that come 
within the West’s electronic footprint under- 
standably resent the negative exposure that 
comes with the increasing concerns of out- 
siders. Islam is a religion of peace: the word 
“Islam,” a verbal noun meaning submission 



JAZIRA RASLANDA 



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INTRODUCTION 



(to God) is etymologically related to the word 
salaam, meaning peace. The standard greet- 
ing most Muslims use when joining a gather- 
ing or meeting strangers is “as-salaam 
alaikum” — “Peace be upon you.” Westerners 
who accuse Islam of being a violent religion 
misunderstand its nature. Attaching the label 
“Muslim” or “Islamic” to acts of terrorism is 
grossly unfair. When a right-wing Christian 
fanatic like Timothy McVeigh blew up a US 
federal building in Oklahoma city, the worst 
atrocity committed on American soil before 
9/11, no one described him as a “Christian” 
terrorist. In the view of many of Islam’s 
adherents, “Westerners” who have aban- 
doned their own faith, or are blinkered by 
religious prejudice, do not “understand” 
Islam. Certain hostile media distort Western 
viewpoints, prejudicing sentiments and atti- 
tudes with Islamophobia — the equivalent of 
anti-Semitism applied to Muslims instead of 
Jews. Some scholars, trained in Western acad- 



emies, are accused of viewing Islam through 
the misshapen lens of Orientalism, a disci- 
pline corrupted by its associations with impe- 
rialism, when specialist knowledge was 
placed at the service of power. 

This is fraught, contested territory and 
writers who venture into it do so at their own 
peril. As with other religious traditions, every 
generalization about Islam is open to chal- 
lenge, because for every normative descrip- 
tion of Islamic faith, belief, and practice, 
there exist important variants and consider- 
able diversity. The problem of definition is 
made more difficult because there is no over- 
arching ecclesiastical institution, no Islamic 
papacy, with prescriptive power to decree 
what is and what is not Islamic. (Even 
Protestant churches define their religious 
positions in contradistinction to Roman 
Catholicism.) 

Being Muslim, like being a Jew, embraces 
ancestry as well as belief. People described as 



The world according 
to al-ldrisi 549-1154 




Tabunt 



. Truiyya 
Bubayrat Janun 



.Sinubun 



TV Labada 



tyf Quruqiyya • 



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al-Qostantino 



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al-Khazar 

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Dahistan 4 



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Jajun 



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mAU-. Saji#- 



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YAJUJ 



Qashtamt 



Kharba 



Bubayrat 

Kbwarazem 



Bubayrat 

Tehama 



Quniyya 



Ardabil 



Tabriz 



al-Mawsil 



V' 1 ARD AL-KIMAKI YY A 

MIN AL-ATRAK 

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Arkadiyya 



Iskanda runa • 
Antakiyyt 



Bukhara 



Baghdad 



Sarakhs 



Nashran 



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MIN AL-ATRAK 

Bubayrat 

Bazwan 



Khirkhir 



Harat 



■Abadan* 

’al-Taghlibiyya 



Qulzum 



Yathrib 



al-Multan 



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Suhar 



Qandahar 



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AL-SIN 



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ARD AL-ABADIYA 
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NUBIA MIN 
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J.Suqutra Qotsoba al-Gharb Jazira Sarandib 



Jazira al-Qamr 
Malot 



l 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Muslims are religiously observant in different 
ways. One can be culturally Muslim, as one 
can be culturally Jewish, without subscribing 
to a particular set of religious prescriptions 
or beliefs. It would not be inappropriate to 
describe many nonreligious Americans and 
Europeans as “cultural Christians” given the 
seminal importance played by Christianity in 
the development of Western culture. The fact 
that the term is rarely, if ever, used is reveal- 
ing of Western cultural hegemony and its 
pretensions to universality. The Christian 
underpinning of Western culture is so taken 
for granted that no one troubles to make it 
apparent. At the same time the term 
“Christian” has been appropriated by 
Protestant fundamentalists who seek to 
define themselves in contradistinction to sec- 
ular humanists or religious believers with 
whose outlook they disagree. 

Similar problems of definition apply in the 
Muslim world. Just as there are theological 
disagreements between Christian churches 
over all sorts of questions of belief and ritu- 
al, within the Islamic fold there are groups 
which differ among themselves ritualistically 
or in terms of their respective tradition of 
interpretation and practice. 

Among the major groups in Islam, histor- 
ically, the two most significant are the Sunni 
and Shiites. 

The Shiites maintain that, shortly before 
his death, the Prophet Muhammad (c. 
570-632 ) designated Ali, his first cousin and 
husband of his daughter Fatima, as his succes- 
sor. They further believe that this succession 
continued in a line of Imams (spiritual lead- 
ers) descendent from Ali and Fatima, each 
specifically designated by the previous Imam. 
The larger body of the Shiites, the “Twelvers” 
or Imamis, believe that the last of these lead- 
ers, who “disappeared” in 873, will reappear 
as the Mahdi or messiah at some future time. 

The Sunnis, on the other hand, maintain that 
the Prophet had made an indication favoring 



one of his companions, Abu Bakr (r. 624—632), 
who was accepted as Caliph or successor by 
agreement of the main leaders in the communi- 
ty after the death of the Prophet. He, in turn, 
appointed Umar (r. 634—644), who on his 
deathbed designated Uthman (r. 644—656) , after 
consultation with leading Muslims. Uthman 
was succeeded by Ali (r. 656 — 66 1), again with 
the consent of leading Muslims of the time. In 
the view of the Sunni majority the four caliphs 
constitute a “rightly guided Caliphate.” 

Over time the Shiites and Sunni both devel- 
oped distinctive community identities. They 
are divided into various branches and organ- 
ized into different movements and tendencies. 
While these, and other groups, differed with 
each other and often fought over their differ- 
ences, the general tenor of relations, in pre- 
modern urban societies, allowed for a degree 
of mutual coexistence and intellectual debate. 

In recent times, however, there has been a 
tendency for extremist sects and radical 
groups to anathematize their religious oppo- 
nents, or to declare those ruling over them to 
be outside the pale of Islam. This narrow 
perspective may be contrasted with a growing 
awareness among the majority of Muslim 
people of the diversity and plurality of inter- 
pretations within the Umma. 

Currently, the climate of religious intoler- 
ance manifested in some parts of the Muslim 
world has complex origins and may be symp- 
tomatic, like the puritan extremism that 
flourished in Europe in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, of the dislocating effects of economic 
and social changes. As the maps and essays 
that follow make clear, modernity came to 
the Muslim world on the wings of colonial 
power, rather than as a consequence of inter- 
nally generated transformations. The “best 
community” decreed by God for “ordering 
the good and forbidding the evil” has lost the 
moral and political hegemony it held in what 
was once the most civilized part of the world 
outside China. When Islam was in the ascen- 



INTRODUCTION 



dant, so was the climate of tolerance it 
engendered. Muslim scholars and theolo- 
gians polemicized against each other but 
were careful not to denounce those who 
affirmed the shahada — the declaration of 
faith — and who prayed toward Mecca. As the 
American scholar Carl Ernst observes, “In 
any society in the world today, religious plu- 
ralism is a sociological fact. If one group 
claims authority over all the rest, demanding 
their allegiance and submission, this will be 
experienced as the imposition of power 
through religious rhetoric.” [Carl Ernst, 
Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in 
the Contemporary World, London and 
Chapel Hill, p. 206.] 

In principle, if not always in practice, a 
Muslim is one who follows Islam, an Arabic 
word meaning “submission” or, more pre- 
cisely, “self-surrender” to the will of God as 
revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. These 
revelations, delivered orally over the period 
of Muhammad’s active prophetic career from 
about 610 until his death, are contained in 
the Koran, the scripture that stands at the 
foundation of the Islamic religion and the 
diverse cultural systems that flow from it. A 
few revisionist scholars working in Western 
universities have challenged the traditional 
Islamic account of the Koran’s origins, argu- 
ing that the text was constructed out of a 
larger body of oral materials following the 
Arab conquest of the Fertile Crescent. The 
great majority of scholars, however, Muslim 
and non-Muslim, regard the Koran as the 
written record of the revelations accumulat- 
ed in the course of Muhammad’s career. 
Unlike the Bible, there are no signs of multi- 
ple authorship. In contrast to the New 
Testament in particular, where the sayings of 
Jesus have been incorporated into four dis- 
tinct narratives of his life presumed to have 
been written by different authors, the Koran 
contains many allusions to events in the 
Prophet’s life, but does not spell them out in 



detail. The story of Muhammad’s career as 
Prophet and Statesman (if one can use a 
rather modern term for the leader of the 
movement that united the tribes of the 
Arabian Peninsula) was constructed from a 
different body of oral materials. Known as 
Hadith (traditions or reports about the 
Prophet’s behavior), they acquired written 
form after Muhammad’s death. 

The Koran is divided into 1 14 sections 
known as suras (rows), each of which is com- 
posed of varying numbers of verses called 
ayas (signs or miracles). Apart from the first 
sura, the Fatiha, or Opening, a seven-verse 
invocation used as a prayer in numerous ritu- 
als, including daily prayers or salat, the suras 
are arranged in approximate order of 
decreasing length, with the shortest at the 
end and the longest near the beginning. Most 
standard editions divide the suras into pas- 
sages revealed in Mecca (which tend to be 
shorter, and hence located near the end of 
the book) and those belonging to the period 
of the Prophet’s sojourn in Medina, where he 
emigrated with his earliest followers to 
escape persecution in Mecca in 622, the Year 
One of the Muslim era. Meccan passages, 
especially the early ones, convey vivid mes- 
sages about personal accountability, reward 
and punishment — in heaven and hell — while 
celebrating the glories and beauty of the nat- 
ural world as proof of God’s creative power 
and sovereignty. The Medinese passages, 
while replicating many of the same themes, 
contain positive teachings on social and legal 
issues (including rules governing sexual rela- 
tions and inheritance, and punishments pre- 
scribed for certain categories of crime). Such 
passages, supplemented with material from 
the Hadith literature, came to be the key 
sources for the development of a legal system 
known as the Sharia. Different scholars of 
Muslim thought added other sources to cre- 
ate a methodology for the systematization 
and implementation of the Sharia. 



9 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



The illuminated double page 
from the Koran in the Bihari 
script. This copy was completed 
in 1399, the year after Timur’s 
conquest of Delhi. The passage, 
from the Al-Tawba ( Sura of 
Repentance), refers to the 
Prophet’s Bedouin allies who are 
not to be excused for failing to 
join one of his campaigns. 



For believing Muslims, the Koran is the 
direct speech of God, dictated without human 
editing. Muhammad has been described by 
some modern Muslim scholars as a passive 
transmitter of the Divine Word. The Prophet 
himself is supposed to have been ummi (illiter- 
ate), although some scholars question this as he 
was an active and successful merchant. For a 
majority of Muslims, the Koran, whose text 
was written down and stabilized during the 
reign of the third caliph, Uthman (r. 644 — 656 ), 
was “uncreated” and coeternal with God. 
Hence, for believing Muslims, the Koran occu- 
pies the position Christ has for Christians. God 
reveals himself not through a person, but 



Islam beyond Arabia occurred on the basis of 
the Arab conquest of the Fertile Crescent and 
lands further afield in the century or so fol- 
lowing the Prophet’s death in 632. Faith in 
Islam and the Prophet’s divine calling — as 
well as the desire for booty — united the 
Arabian tribes into a formidable fighting 
machine. They defeated both the Byzantine 
and Sasanian armies, opening part of the 
Byzantine Empire and the whole of Persia to 
Muslim conquest and settlement. At first 
Islam remained primarily the religion of the 
“Arab”. Muslim commanders housed their 
tribal battalions in separate military canton- 
ments outside the cities they conquered, leav- 








•m 





through the language contained in a holy text. 
Other religious traditions, including Buddhism, 
Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism, and 
Zoroastrianism, privilege their foundational 
texts as sacred. Muslim rulers recognized this 
common principle by granting religious tolera- 
tion to the ahl al-kitab (Peoples of the Book). 

In its initial phase the rapid expansion of 



ing their new subjects (Christian, Jewish, or 
Zoroastrian) to regulate their own affairs so 
long as they paid the jizya (poll-tax) in lieu of 
military service. The process of Islamization 
occurred gradually, through marriage, as the 
leading families of the subject populations 
sought to join the Muslim elites. It also 
occurred as impoverished or uprooted sub- 



10 





INTRODUCTION 



jects found support in the religion of their 
rulers, or as people disenchanted with their 
former rulers found a congenial spiritual 
home in one that honored their traditions 
while representing their teachings in a new, 
creative synthesis. The role of early Muslim 
missionaries was also crucial in this process. 

Muslim theology, however, did have one 
dynamic cultural dimension, which may help 
to explain its evolution of an “Arab” religion 
into a universal faith. As the quintessential 
“religion of the Book,” which represented the 
divine Word as manifested in a written text, 
Islam carried with it the prestige of learning 
and literacy into illiterate cultures. The cult of 
the book, like La Rochefoucauld’s definition 
of hypocrisy, was the homage not of vice to 
virtue, but of illiteracy to learning. However 
revelation is perceived — whether proceeding 
directly from God or by way of an altered 
mental state comparable to the operations of 
human genius — Muhammad’s epiphany came 
in the form of language. Time and again the 
nomadic peoples on the fringes of the Muslim 
empires would take over the centers of power, 
and in so doing civilize themselves, becoming 
in turn the bearers of Muslim cultural pres- 
tige. After the disintegration of the great 
Abbasid Empire, the dream of a universal 
caliphate embracing the whole of the Islamic 
world (and, indeed, the rest of humanity) 
ceased to be a viable project. The lines of com- 
munication were too long for the center to be 
able to suppress the ambitions of local 
dynasts. But the prestige of literacy, symbol- 
ized by the Koran and its glorious calligraphic 
elaborations on the walls of mosques and 
other public buildings, as well as in the metic- 
ulously copied versions of the book itself, was 
powerful. Even Mongol invaders, notorious 
for their cruelty, would succumb to the spiri- 
tual and aesthetic power of Islam in the west- 
ern part of their dominions. 

The maps in this book do not aim to pro- 
vide a comprehensive account of the shifting 




patterns of state and religious authority that 
prevailed during the vast sweep of Islamic 
history from the time of the Prophet to the 
present. But it is hoped that they will illumi- 
nate important aspects of that history by 
opening windows into significant areas of 
the distant and recent past, thereby helping 
to explain the legacy of conflicts — as well as 
opportunities — the past has bequeathed to 
the present. Geography is vital for the under- 
standing of Islamic history and its problem- 
atic relationship with modernity. 

As the maps in this atlas illustrate, the cen- 
tral belt of Islamic territories stretching from 
the Atlantic Ocean to the Indus Valley was 
perennially at the mercy of nomadic or semi- 
nomadic invaders. In premodern times, 
before gunpowder weapons, air 
power, and modern systems of 
communication brought 
peripheral regions under 
the control of central 
governments (usually 
under colonial aus- 
pices) , the cities were 
vulnerable to attack 
by nomadic preda- 
tors. The genius of 
the Islamic system 
lay in providing the 
converted tribesmen 
with a system of law, 
practice and learning within 
a foundation of faith to which 
they became acculturated over time. 

In his Muqaddima, or “Proglomena” to 
the History of the World, the Arab philoso- 
pher of history Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) 
developed a theory of cyclic renewal and state 
formation, which analyzed this process in the 
context of his native North Africa. According 
to his theory, in the arid zones where rainfall is 
sparse, pastoralism remains the principal 
mode of agricultural production. Unlike peas- 
ants, pastoralists are organized along “tribal” 



A world map drawn in 1571—72 
by the al-Sharafi al-Sifaqsi family 
in the town of Sfax, Tunisia. 



11 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



lines (patrilineal kinship groups). They are rel- 
atively free from government control. Enjoying 
greater mobility than urban people, they can- 
not be regularly taxed. Nor can they be 
brought under the control of feudal lords who 
will appropriate a part of their produce in 
return for extending protection. Indeed, in the 
arid lands it is the tribesmen who are usually 
armed, and who, at times, can hold the city to 
ransom, or conquer it. Ibn Khaldun’s insights 
tell us why it is usually inappropriate to speak 
of Muslim “feudalism,” except in the strictly 
limited context of the great river valley systems 
of Egypt and Mesopotamia, where a settled 
peasantry farmed the land. In the arid regions, 
pastoralists move their flocks seasonally across 
the land according to complex arrangements 
with other users. Usufruct is not ownership. 
Property and territory are not coterminous, as 
they became in the high rainfall regions of 
Europe. Here feudalism and its offshoot, capi- 
talism, took root and eventually created the 
bourgeois state that would dominate the coun- 
tryside, commercializing agriculture and sub- 
jecting rural society to urban values and con- 
trol. In most parts of Western Asia and North 
Africa, in contrast, the peoples at the margins 
continued to elude state control until the com- 
ing of air power. Even now the process is far 
from complete in places such as Afghanistan, 
where tribal structures have resisted the 
authority of the central government. 

Urban Moroccans had a revealing term for 
the tribal regions of their country: bled al- 
siba — the land of insolence — as contrasted 
with bled al-makhzen, the civilized center, 
which periodically falls prey to it. The supe- 
riority of the tribes, in Ibn Khaldun’s theory, 
depends on asabiyya, a term which is usually 
translates as group feeling or social solidari- 
ty. This asabiyya derives ultimately from the 
harsher environment of the desert or arid 
lands, where there is little division of labor, 
and humans depend for their survival on the 
bonds of kinship. City life, by contrast, lacks 



a common or corporative asabiyya. The 
absence of bourgeois solidarity, in which the 
corporate group interests of the burghers 
transcend the bonds of kinship, may partly 
be traced to the operations of Muslim law. 
Unlike the Roman legal tradition, the Sharia 
contains no provision for the recognition of 
corporate groups as fictive “persons.” 

In its classic formulation, Ibn Khaldun’s 
theory applied to the North African milieu 
he knew and understood best. But it serves as 
an explanatory model for the wider history 
of Western Asia and North Africa, from the 
coming of Islam to the present. The theory is 
based on the dialectical interraction between 
religion and asabiyya. Ibn Khaldun’s concept 
of asabiyya, which is central to his outlook 
on Muslim social and political history, can be 
made to mesh with modern theories of eth- 
nicity, whether one adopts a “primordial” or 
“interactive” model. The key to Ibn 
Khaldun’s theory may be found in two of his 
propositions singled out by the anthropolo- 
gist and philosopher Ernest Gellner: (1) 
“Leadership exists only through superiority, 
and superiority only through group feeling 
(asabiyya)” and (2) “Only tribes held togeth- 
er by group feeling can live in the desert.” 
The superior power of the tribes vis-a-vis 
the cities provided the conditions under which 
dynastic military government and its variants, 
royal government underpinned by mamlukism 
or institutionalized asabiyya, became the 
norm in Islamic history prior to the European 
colonial intervention. The absence of the legal 
recognition of corporative bodies in Islamic 
law prevented the artificial solidarity of the 
corporation, a prerequisite for urban capitalist 
development, from transcending the “natural” 
solidarities of kinship. In precolonial times the 
high cultural traditions of Islam constantly 
interacted with these primordial solidarities 
or ethnicities: they did not replace them. 

Formally the ethic of Islam is opposed to 
local solidarities, which privilege some 



12 



INTRODUCTION 



believers above others. In theory there exists 
a single Muslim community — the umma — 
under the sovereignty of God. In practice this 
ideal was often modified by recognition of 
the need to enlist asabiyya or tribal ethnicity 
in the “path of God.” Islamic practice stress- 
es communitarian values through regular 
prayer, pilgrimage, and other devotional 
practices, and given time, generates the urban 
scripturalist piety of the high cultural or 
“great” tradition. But it does not of itself 
forge a permanent congregational communi- 
ty strong enough to transcend the counter- 
vailing dynamic of local ethnicities. Be they 
secular — based on differences of tribe, vil- 
lage, or even craft — or sectarian religious — 
based on divisions between different mad- 
habs (schools of jurisprudence), or the mysti- 
cal Sufi orders which are often controlled by 
family lineages, or the differences between 
Sunnis and Shiites — such divisions militate 
against the solidarity of the Umma. 

Like the Baptist movement in the United 
States, Islam (especially that of the Sunni 
mainstream, comprising about 90 percent of 
the world’s Muslims) is a conservative, pop- 
ulist force, which resists tight doctrinal or 
ecclesiastical controls. While Muslim scrip- 
turalism and orthopraxy provide a common 
language which crosses ethnic, racial, and 
national boundaries — creating the largest 
“international society” known to the world 
in premodern times — it has never succeeded 
in supplying the ideological underpinning for 
a unified social order that can be translated 
into common national identity. In the West 
the institutions of medieval Christianity, 
allied to Roman legal structures, created the 
preconditions for the emergence of the mod- 
ern national state. In Islamdom the moral 
basis of the state was constantly undermined 
by the realities of tribal asabiyya. These 
could be admitted de facto, but never accord- 
ed de jure recognition. This may be one rea- 
son why a civilization that by the tenth and 



eleventh centuries was far ahead of its 
Christian competitor eventually fell behind, 
to find itself under the political and cultural 
dominance of people it regarded — and which 
some of its members still do regard — as infi- 
dels. 

The Islamic system of precolonial times, 
embedded in the memory of contemporary 
Muslims, was brilliantly adapted to the polit- 
ical ecology of its era. Even if the strategy of 
“waging jihad in the path of God” were 
adopted for pragmatic or military reasons, 
Islamic faith and culture were the beneficiar- 
ies. The nomad conquerors and Mamluks 
(soldier-slaves), imported from peripheral 
regions to keep them at bay, became Islam’s 
foremost champions, defenders of the faith- 
community and patrons of its cultures and 
systems of learning. 

The social memory of this system exercises 
a powerful appeal over the imaginations of 
many young Muslims at this time. This is espe- 
cially true when the more recent memory of 
modernization through colonization can be 
represented as a story of humiliation, retreat, 
and betrayal of Islam’s mission to bring univer- 
sal truth and justice to a world torn by division 
and strife. The violence that struck America on 
September Ifth 2001, may have been rooted in 
the despair of people holding a romantic, ide- 
alized vision of the past and smarting under the 
humiliation of the present. While those who 
planned the operation were almost certainly, 
educated, sophisticated men, fully cognizant 
with the workings of modern societies, it does 
not seem accidental that most of the fifteen 
hijackers were Saudi citizens, several from the 
province of Asir. This impoverished mountain- 
ous region close to the modern borders of 
Yemen was conquered by the A1 Saud family in 
the 1920s, and still retains many of its links 
with the Yemeni tribes. Like all decent people, 
Ibn Khaldun would have been horrified by the 
indiscriminate slaughter of 9/11: but it is 
doubtful that he would have been surprised. 



13 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Foundational Beliefs and Practices 



In the majority of Islamic traditions, all 
Muslims adhere to certain fundamentals. 
The most important is the profession of 
faith, a creedal formula that states: 
“There is no God but God. Muhammad is 
the Messenger of God.” Stated before 
witnesses, this formula — called the 
Shahada — is the sufficient requirement 
for conversion to Islam and belonging to 
the Umma. 

Muslims affirm tawhid (the Unity and 
Uniqueness of God). They believe that 
God has communicated to humanity 
throughout its history by way of 
Messengers, who include figures like 
Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, and that 
Muhammad was the final Messenger to 
whom was revealed the Koran. In person- 
al and social life, Muslims are required to 
adhere to a moral and ethical mode of 
behavior for which they are accountable 
before God. 

As well as tawhid, articles of faith 
adhered to by Muslims include the belief 
that angels and other supernatural 
beings act as divine emissaries; that Iblis 
or Satan, the fallen angel, was cast out of 
heaven for refusing God’s command to 
prostrate himself before Adam; and that 
Muhammad is the “seal” of the 
prophets, the last in a line of human 
messengers sent by God to teach and 
warn humanity. The Koran affirms that 
the recipients of previous revelations — 
the Christians and Jews — have corrupted 
the scriptures sent down to them. It 
warns of the Day of Judgement when all 
individuals, living or dead, will be 
answerable to God for their conduct. 
The virtuous will be rewarded with eter- 



nal bliss in the gardens of heaven. Those 
who have failed in their duty will be sen- 
tenced to the fires of hell. 

The Koran also articulates a frame- 
work of practices which have become 
normative for Muslims over time. 

One of them is worship, which takes 
several forms, such as salat (ritual 
prayer), dhikr (contemplative prayer), or 
dua (prayers of exhortation and praise). 
Muslims performing salat prostrate 
themselves in the direction of the Kaba, 
the cubic temple covered in an embroi- 
dered cloth of black silk that stands at the 
center of the sacred shrine in Mecca. 
Salat is performed daily: early morning, 
noon, mid-afternoon, sunset and evening, 
or combined according to circumstance. 
Prayer may be performed individually, at 
home, in a public place such as a park or 
street, or in the mosque (an English word 
derived from the Arabic masjid, “place of 
prostration”) or other congregational 
places. The call to prayer (adhan) is made 
from the minaret which stands above the 
mosque. It includes the takbir (allahu 
akbar “God is most great”), as well as 
shahada and the imperative: “Hurry to 
salat.” In the past, before electronic 
amplification, the beautifully modulated 
sounds of the adhan were delivered in 
person by a muezzin from the minarets 
five times a day. The noon salat on Friday 
is the congregational service, and is 
accompanied by a khutba (sermon) spo- 
ken by the Imam, or prayer leader or 
other religious notable. In the early cen- 
turies of Islam, the name of the caliph or 
ruler was pronounced with the khutba. 
When territories changed hands between 



14 



INTRODUCTION 



different rulers (as frequently happened), 
the official indication of a change of gov- 
ernment came in the form of the procla- 
mation of the new ruler’s name in the 
country’s leading mosques. 

Another foundational practice is 
zakat, sharing of wealth (not to be con- 
fused with voluntary charity or sadaqa). 
In the past, zakat was intended to foster 
a sense of community by stressing the 
obligation of the better-off to help the 
poor, and was paid to religious leaders or 
to the government. At present, different 
Muslim groups observe practices specific 
to their traditions. 

Sawm is the fast in daylight hours dur- 
ing the holy month of Ramadan, when 
believers abstain from eating, drinking, 
smoking, and sexual activity. Abu Hamid 
al-Ghazali, the medieval mystic and the- 
ologian, listed numerous benefits from 
the discipline of fasting. These included 
purity of the heart and the sharpening of 
perceptions that comes with hunger, 
mortification and self-abasement, self- 
mastery by overcoming desire, and soli- 
darity with the hungry: the person who is 
sated “is liable to forget those people 
who are hungry and to forget hunger 
itself.” Ramadan is traditionally an occa- 
sion both for family reunions and reli- 
gious reflection. In many Muslim coun- 
tries, the fast becomes a feast at sun- 
down — an occasion for public conviviali- 
ty that lasts well into the night. Ramadan 
is the ninth month in the hijri (lunar cal- 
endar) which falls short of the solar year 
by 11 days: thus Ramadan, like other 
Muslim festivals, occurs at different sea- 
sons over a 35-year cycle. 



Another significant ritual practice is 
the Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca, which 
practicing Muslims are required to per- 
form at least once in their lifetimes, if 
able to do so. Historically the Hajj has 
been one of the principal means by which 
different parts of the Muslim world 
remained in physical contact. In pre- 
modern times, before mass transporta- 
tion by steamships and aircraft brought 
the Hajj within the reach of people of 
modest or average means, returning pil- 
grims enjoyed the honored title of Hajji 
and a higher social status within their 
communities than non-Hajjis. As well as 
providing spiritual fulfilment, the Hajj 
sometimes created business opportunities 
by enabling pilgrims from different 
regions of the world to meet each other. It 
also facilitated movements of religious- 
political reform. Many political move- 
ments were forged out of encounters that 
took place on the pilgrimage — from the 
Shiite rebellion that led to the foundation 
of the Fatimid caliphate in North Africa 
(909) to modern Islamist movements of 
revival and reform. The end of Ramadan 
is marked by the Id al-Fitr (the Feast of 
Fast Breaking), while the climax of the 
Hajj involves the Id al-Adha (Feast of 
Sacrifice) in which all Muslims partici- 
pate by sacrificing animals. These two 
feasts are the major canonical festivals 
observed by Muslims everywhere. There 
are, in addition, many other devotional 
and spiritual practices among Muslims 
that have developed over the centuries, 
based on specific interpretations of the 
practice of faith and its interaction with 
local traditions. 



IS 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Geophysical Map of the Muslim World 



Originally built in the fourteenth 
century , the mosque at Agades, 
in Niger, is made of mud. Its 
structure is constantly renewed 
by workers bearing new mud 
who climb up the wooden posts 
that protrude from the sides and 
serve as scaffolding. 



Although lands of the Islamic world now 
occupy a broad belt of territories ranging 
from the African shores of the Atlantic to the 
Indonesian archipelago, the core regions of 
Western Asia where Islam originated exer- 
cised a decisive influence on its development. 
Compared to Western Europe and North 
America, the region is perennially short on 
rainfall. During the winter, rain and snow 




born by westerlies from the Atlantic fall in 
substantial quantities on the Atlas and Riffian 
Mountains, the Cyrenaican massif, and 
Mount Lebanon, with the residue falling 
intermittently on the Green Mountain of 
Oman, the Zagros, the Elburz, and the moun- 
tains of Afghanistan. But the only rains that 
occur with predictable regularity fall in the 



highlands of Yemen and Dhufar, which catch 
the Indian Ocean monsoons, and the Junguli 
region lying south of the Caspian Sea under 
the northern slopes of the Elburz, which 
catches moisture-laden air flowing southward 
from Russia. 

Before recent times, when crops such as 
wheat, requiring large amounts of water, 
appeared in the shape of food imports, and 
underground fossil water (stored for millions 
of years in aquifers) became available through 
modern methods of drilling, agriculture was 
highly precarious. A field that had yielded 
wheat for millennia would fail when the annu- 
al rainfall was one inch instead of the usual 
twenty. Ancient peoples understood this well, 
and provided themselves with granaries. 
However, agriculture did flourish in the great 
river valleys of Egypt and Mesopotamia (now 
Iraq). Here the annual flooding caused by the 
tropical rains in Africa and melting snows in 
the Anatolian and Iranian highlands pro- 
duced regular harvests and facilitated the 
development of the complex city-based cul- 
tures of ancient Sumer, Assyria, and Egypt. 
The need to manage finely calibrated systems 
of irrigation using the nutrient-rich waters of 
the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Nile 
required complex systems of recording and 
control, making it necessary for literate 
priestly bureaucrats to govern alongside the 
holders of military power. Together with the 
Yellow River in China and the Indus Valley, 
the three great river systems of the Fertile 
Crescent are at the origins of human civiliza- 
tion. The first states, in the sense of orderly 
systems of government based on common 
legal principles, appeared in these regions 
more than five millennia ago. 

The limited extent of the soil water neces- 
sary for agricultural production had a decisive 
impact on the evolution of human societies in 
the arid zone. Though conditions vary from 



16 



GEOPHYSICAL MAP OF THE MUSLIM WORLD 



one region to another, certain features distin- 
guish the patterns of life from those of the 
temperate zones to the north or tropical zones 
to the south. Where rainfall is scarce and 
uncertain, animal husbandry — the raising of 
camels, sheep, goats, cattle, and, where suit- 
able, horses — offers the securest livelihood for 
substantial numbers of humans. The “pure 
deserts” or sand seas of shifting dunes shaped 
by the wind, which cover nearly one-third of 
the land area of Arabia and North Africa, are 



Unlike peasant cultivators, a portion of 
whose product may be extracted by priests in 
the form of offerings or by the ruler in taxes, 
nomadic pastoralists will often avoid the con- 
fines of state power. People are organized into 
tribes or patrilineal kinship groups descended 
from a common male ancestor. Military 
prowess is encouraged because, where food 
resources are scarce, tribal or “segmentary” 
groups may have to compete with each other, 
or make raids on settled villages, in order to 




As Islam established itself along 
the Silk Road, mosques were 
built for travelers and local 
converts. This mosque in the 
Xinjiang province of China 
reflects the Central Asian 
influence in its design. 



wholly unsuitable for human and animal life, 
and have generally been avoided by herdsmen, 
traders, and armies. But in the broader semi- 
desert regions complex forms of nomadic and 
seminomadic pastoralism have evolved. In 
winter the flocks and herds will range far into 
the wadis or semidesert areas, to feed on the 
grasses and plants that can spring up after the 
lightest of showers. In the heat of summer 
they will move, where possible, to pastures in 
the highlands, or cluster near pools or wells. 



survive. Property is held communally, classi- 
cally in the form of herds, rather than in the 
form of crop-yielding land. Property and ter- 
ritory are not coterminous (as they tended to 
become in regions of higher rainfall) because 
the land may be occupied by different users at 
different seasons of the year. Vital resources, 
such as springs or wells in which everyone has 
an interest, are often considered as belonging 
to God, and are entrusted to the custodian- 
ship of special families regarded as holy. 



17 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 




18 



GEOPHYSICAL MAP OFTHE MUSLIM WORLD 




•BURMA 

(MYANMAR) 



Bay of Bei 



THAILAND 



SRI LANKA 



.**-*-« 



Muslim lands 


in 


Arid zone 


HI] 


Northern and southern 
forest zones 


— 


Muslim population 
50% or more 



19 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Muslim Languages and Ethnic Groups 



There are approximately one billion Muslim 
people — about one-fifth of humanity — living in 
the world today. Of these the largest single- 
language ethnic group, about 15 percent, are 
Arabs. Not all Arabs are Muslims — there are 
substantial Arab Christian minorities in Egypt, 
Palestine, Syria, and Iraq, and small numbers of 
Arabic-speaking Jews in Morocco — although 
the numbers of both these communities have 
rapidly declined in recent decades, mainly 
through emigration. As the language of the 
Koran, of Islamic scholarship and law, Arabic 
long dominated the cultures of the Muslim 
world, closely followed by Persian — the lan- 
guage of Iran and the Mughal courts in India. 

The spread of Islam among non-Arab peo- 
ples, however, has made Arabic a minority lan- 
guage — although many non-Arab Muslims 
read the Koran in Arabic. An ethnographic sur- 
vey published in 1983 lists more than 400 eth- 
nic/linguistic groups who are Muslim. The 
largest after the Arabs, in diminishing order, 
are Bengalis, Punjabis, Javanese, Urdu speak- 
ers, Anatolian Turks, Sundanese (from Eastern 
Java), Persians, Hausas, Malays, Azeris, 
Fulanis, Uzbeks, Pushtuns, Berbers, Sindhis, 
Kurds, and Madurese (front the island of 
Madura, northeast of Java). These groups 
number between nearly 100 million (Bengalis) 
down to 10 million (Sindhis, Kurds, and 
Madurese). Of the hundreds of smaller groups 
listed, the smallest — the Wayto hunter gather- 
ers in Ethiopia — number fewer than 2,000. 
However, three of the languages spoken by 
more than 10 million people — Javanese, 
Sundanese, and Madurese — are in the course 
of being overlaid by Bahasa Indonesia, the offi- 
cial language taught in Indonesian schools. 
With Indonesians constituting the world’s 
largest Muslim-majority nation, Bahasa 



Indonesia could overtake Arabic as the most 
widely spoken Muslim language. 

In addition to Muslims living in their coun- 
tries of ethnic origin, there are now millions of 
Muslims residing in Europe and North America. 
Given that English is the international language 
of commerce, scholarship, and science, with sec- 
ond-generation European, American, and 
Canadian Muslims speaking English (as well as 
French, German, Dutch, and other European 
tongues) the growth of English among Muslims 
is a significant recent development. 

The modern nation-state, based on interna- 
tionally recognized boundaries, a common lan- 
guage (in most cases), a common legal system, 
and representative institutions (whether these are 
appointed or elected) is a recent phenomenon in 
most of the Muslim world. Often imposed by 
arrangements between the European powers, 
modern boundaries cut across lines of linguis- 
tic/ethnic affiliation, leaving peoples such as 
Kurds and Pushtuns divided into different states. 
Before the colonial interventions began to lock 
them into the international system of UN mem- 
ber states, Muslim states tended to be organized 
communally rather than territorially. States were 
not bounded by lines drawn on maps. The power 
of a government did not operate uniformly with- 
in a fixed and generally recognized area, as hap- 
pened in Europe, but rather “radiated from a 
number of urban centers with a force which tend- 
ed to grow weaker with distance and with the 
existence of natural or human obstacles.” 
[Albert Hourani A History of the Arab Peoples 
London, Faber, revised ed. 2002, p. 138.] Patriot- 
ism was focused, not as in Renaissance Italy, 
England, or Holland, on the city, city-state, or 
nation in the modern territorial sense, but on the 
clan or tribe within the larger frame of the 
umma, the worldwide Islamic community Local 



20 



MUSLIM LANGUAGES AND ETHNIC GROUPS 



solidarities were reinforced by endogamous prac- 
tices such as marriage between first cousins, a 
requirement in many communities. Clan loyalties 
were further buttressed by religion, with tribal 
leaders often justifying their rebellions or wars of 
conquest by appealing to the defense of true 
Islam against its infidel enemies. 

Viewed from the perspective of modern 
Western history the systems of governance that 
evolved in the arid region were divisive and 
unstable. In Europe, a region of high rainfall, 
the state emerged out of constitutional struggles 
between rulers and their subjects animated by 
conflicts between social classes, within ethnical- 
ly homogeneous populations sharing common 
national, political, and cultural identities 
(although these were sometimes contested, as in 
Ireland). In the arid zone dominant clans or trib- 
ally based dynasties exercised power over subor- 
dinate groups or tried to ensure their dominance 
by importing mamluks (slave-soldiers), from dis- 
tant peripheries, who had minimal social con- 
tacts with the indigenous populations. Peasant 
cultivators and townsfolk remained vulnerable 
to the predations of nomadic marauders — the 
proverbial “barbarians at the gates.” The 
asabiyya (loyalties or group solidarity) that 
bound the clans was stronger than urban soli- 
darity Lacking the corporate ethos of their 
Western counterparts, the Muslim urban classes 
failed to achieve the “bourgeois” or capitalist 
revolutions that gave rise to the modern state 
systems of Europe and North America. 

There is, however, a different way of view- 
ing the same historical landscape. Given the 
predominance of pastoral nomadism in the 
vast belt of territories where Islam took root, 
stretching from the Kazakh steppes to the 
Atlantic shores (and in similar regions in 
northern India and south of the Sahara) the 
inability of relatively weak agrarian states to 
tax nomadic predators or control them 



through military power was balanced by the 
moral force and cultural prestige of Islam. 
Time and again in precolonial times the pred- 
ators were converted into Islam’s most trusted 
defenders. To borrow a phrase of the anthro- 
pologist Ernest Gellner, “the wolves become 
sheepdogs.” Just as the Prophet Muhammad 
had tamed the Arabian tribes by his personal 
example, the eloquence of the Koran, and the 
system of governance that proceeded from it, 
so the Sharia (divine) law and human systems 
of fiqh (jurisprudence) to which it gave rise 
mediated the perennial conflicts between pas- 
toral predators, cultivators, and townsfolk. 
The system, embedded in the social memory 
of today’s Muslim populations, was based on 
the duty of the ruler to uphold social justice by 
governing in accordance with Islamic law. The 
formidable task facing contemporary Muslim 
states is to harness political and social tradi- 
tions forged in a very different context from 
modern-day conditions. 



A Tuareg policeman in the Sahel 
region south of the Sahara. From 
their center at Timbuktu, the 
Tuareg controlled the trade 
routes between the 
Mediterranean and West Africa. 




21 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 




SEQj 


WOLOF 

[EGAL 


FULANI st 




Dakar* 


FULANI 

:illl Mott 


nw 

BAMBABA 





o c 


E A N 




Languages and peoples of Islam 

Muslim population, 50% or more 
ENGLISH Imperial languages still in regional use 













22 



MUSLIM LANGUAGES AND ETHNIC GROUPS 




23 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Late Antiquity Before Islam 




This rock relief from Magshi-i 
Rus Van depicts Ardeshir I, 
founder of the Sasanian dynasty, 
facing a hostile Parthian warrior. 



Byzantines and the Lakhmids, who gave 
allegiance to the Sasanian Empire. 

A major influence on intellectual life that 
was to emerge in the Muslim world came 
from the academies and learning institutions 
that preserved influences from Persia, Greece, 
and India. In particular, the Hellenistic and 
Persian legacies in the fields of medicine, the 
sciences, and philosophy would bring about a 
strong tradition of intellectual inquiry in 
Muslim societies. 

The cultures in the regions were influenced 
by the cosmopolitan nature of this 
Mediterranean world to 
different degrees, preserv- 
ing the heritage of classi- 
cal antiquity and the 
Hellenistic legacy in its 
various forms, architec- 
tural, philosophical, artis- 
tic, urban, and agricultur- 
al. Of the major religions 
in the region, Christianity 
in its orthodox form also 
held sway in southern 
Arabia while Zoroastrian- 
ism predominated in Iran 
and Mesopotamia. Juda- 
ism had a long history in 
the Near East and small Jewish communities 
had also settled in Yemen and the oases of 
Arabia, such as Medina. The inherited values, 
literature, and practices of all these traditions 
coexisted in this vast, multifaith and multieth- 
nic milieu, which within a century of the death 
of the Prophet Muhammad would be overtaken 
by Muslim conquest. Over time it would form 
part of a larger set of civilizations linked by the 
faith of Islam, while still preserving continuities 
with the various heritages of antiquity. 



The Muslim community emerged in seventh- 
century Arabia in a region dominated by 
ancient civilizations, empires, cultures, and 
ethnic groups. Traces of Mesopotamian cul- 
ture still survived in the Tigris and Euphrates 
valleys, and the areas bordering the 
Mediterranean and the Gulf had long felt the 
impact of the adjoining powers that plied the 
maritime trade in these waters. Byzantium, 
the Eastern Roman and Orthodox state based 
in Constantinople, was the primary Christian 
kingdom in the region and 
at odds with the powerful 



Zoroastrian Sasanian Empire based in Persia 
(modern Iran). The ebb and flow of conflict 
between the various major states influenced 
trade as well as relations with the prosperous 
region of Arabia to the south. The history of 
some of the ancient Arab kingdoms is still 
preserved in archaeological remains, such as 
those of the Nabateans at Petra (first century 
BC — first century AD), Palmyra (second — 
third century AD), and of the Ghassanids in 
later centuries, whose patrons were the 



24 



LATE ANTIQUITY BEFORE ISLAM 




Ardabil • 



• Attaleia 



Qazvin 



Antiod 



CYPRUS 



Alexandria 



Qadisiya 



• Istahar 
(Persepolis) 



GHATAFAN 



Sahara 



Desert 



• Medina 



al-Yamama 



NOBATIA 



• Mecca 



HAWAZIN 



MAKKURA 



• Dongola 



ALWA 



AXUM 



Arabia before the Muslim conquests 

s Occupied by Sasanians 607-28 
KALB Arab tribe 






. Cresiphon SASANIAN EMPIRE 

Karbala • , 



MAZUN 



2S 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Muhammad’s Mission and Campaigns 




Although Muhammad’s image is 
considered taboo, pictures of the 
heroic deeds of his uncle, Hamza, 
and others were circulated to show 
the first epic battles of the 
Muslims. This painting from India 
c. 1561—76 is from a series of 
large-format illustrations shown to 
audiences while the epic stories 
were read aloud. 



Islam is an Arabic noun from the verb aslama, 
to surrender oneself. In its primary sense the 
active participle muslim means someone who 
surrenders himself or herself to God as 
revealed through the teachings of the Prophet 
Muhammad (c. 570-632). Muhammad is 
believed by Muslims to have communicated 
God’s revelation in the Koran, a text Muslims 
regard as the final revelation of God to 
humankind. Collected under the third of 
Muhammad’s successors, the Caliph Uthman 



(r. 644-656), the Koran is composed of 114 
chapters, or suras. These are said to have been 
revealed in Muhammad’s native city of Mecca, 
where he was a respected merchant, and suras 
also date from the period of his sojourn in 
Medina (622-632). 

In Mecca, the Koran’s condemnation of the 
sins of pride, avarice, and the neglect of social 
duties, its warnings of divine judgement, and 
its attacks on pagan deities brought 
Muhammad and his followers into conflict with 
the leaders of his own tribe, the Quraish. His 
fellow clansmen were boycotted, with Muslim 
converts subjected to persecution, and a num- 
ber took refuge in Axurn (Ethiopia). However, 
Muhammad’s fame as a prophet and trusted 
man of God spread beyond Mecca. He was 
invited to act as judge and arbitrator between 
the feuding tribal factions of Yathrib, later 
renamed Madinat al-Nabi (“the city of the 
Prophet”), usually shortened to Medina, an 
oasis settlement about 250 miles northeast of 
Mecca. The hijra (migration) of the Muslims in 
622 marks the beginning of the Muslim era. 
The passages in the Koran dating from the 
Medina period, when Muhammad was the 
effective ruler, contain some of the legislative 
material (such as rules regarding marriage and 
inheritance) that would form the basis of what 
became Islamic law. After a series of campaigns 
against the Meccans, the Muslims emerged vic- 
torious. In the last year of his life Muhammad 
returned in triumph to Mecca, receiving the 
submission of the tribes along the way. He 
reformed the ancient ceremonies of the hajj 
(pilgrimage), discarding their animist aspects 
and reorienting them to what he believed to be 
the original monotheism of Abraham. After 
further expeditions he returned to Medina. He 
died there after a short illness in 632. 



26 




MUHAMMAD’S MISSION AND CAMPAIGNS 




Marash 



Harran 



• Mosul 



izvin • 



Antioch 



Hamadan 



Tripoli 



Homs 



Nihavand 



Ctesiphon 



Wasit 



Damietta Gaza 



• Isfahan 



iQadisiya 636 



Alexandria 



Jerusalem 



• Kerman 



al-Fustat 

(Cairo) 



Dumat al-Jandal 



Aswan 



Medina 



al-Yamama 



Muscat 



• Mecca 



Muhammad's Missions and 


Campaigns to 632 


- 


Muhammad moves to Medina 




Campaigns 


n 


Conquered by Muhammad to 632 


m 


Conquered by Abu Bakr 632-34 


X 


Battle site with date 



27 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Expansion of Islam to 750 



The Dome of the Rock in 
Jerusalem, built by the Caliph 
Abd al-Malik in 691—92, is the 
first great building to have been 
constructed after the Arab 
conquest. Embellished with 
Koranic quotations proclaiming 
the unity of God, the building 
surrounds the rock from where 
Muhammad is believed to have 
embarked on his miraculous 
“night journey ” to heaven. 



Muhammad’s death left the Muslim communi- 
ty without an obvious leader. One of his oldest 
companions, Abu Bakr (r. 632-634), was 
acknowledged by several leaders as the first 
caliph, or successor. Under Abu Bakr and his 
successor Umar (634-644), the tribes, who had 
begun to fall away on the death of Muhammad, 
were reunited under the banner of Islam and 
converted into a formidable military and ideo- 
logical force. The Arabs broke out of the penin- 
sula, conquering half the Byzantine provinces 
as well as defeating the armies of Sasanian 
Persia. Ctesiphon, the Persian capital, fell in 
637, Jerusalem in 638. By 646, under Umar’s 
successor Uthman (r. 644-656), the whole of 
Egypt had come under Arab Muslim control. 
Acquiring ships from Egypt and Syria, the 
Arabs conducted seaborne raids, conquering 
Cyprus in 649 and pillaging Rhodes in 654. 
Religious differences between the Byzantine 
rulers and their subjects in Egypt and Syria 
ensured that the Muslims were met with indif- 
ference, or even welcomed by fellow monothe- 
ists embittered by decades of alien Byzantine 
rule. But secular factors were also important. 
The Arabs were motivated by desire for plun- 
der, as well as religious faith. In previous eras 





Umar encouraged the tribes to settle 
with a system of stipends paid from the 
common treasury, which took control of 
the conquered lands. The Arabs were kept 
apart from the population in armed camps that 
evolved into garrison cities such as Basra and 
Kufa in Iraq. Although the tensions over the 
distribution of booty would erupt into open 
civil war the overall control exercised by the 
fledgling Islamic government remained under 
dynastic rule. Though individual dynasties 
would often be challenged as ruling contrary to 
Islamic principles of equality and justice, the 
dynastic system of governance fitted the pre- 
vailing form of social organization, the patriar- 
chal kinship group, and remained the norm 
until modern times. Under the Umayyads the 
remarkable expansion of Islam continued, with 
the Arab raiders reaching as far as central 
France and the Indus Valley. 



28 



EXPANSION OF ISLAM TO 7S0 







ARMENIA 

• Tifl ls 



• Derbend 



Bukhara 



Tabriz* ^ 



Ardabil 



ishapnr 



Nehavend 



Kerbeia 



^k636 



• Ctesiphon 

/ Susa 
Oadisiya 61 



Isfahan 



Istahar 648 



j\_rabi# n 



Muscat 



kingdom 

OFAXUM 



Expansion to750 




Arab advance 


X 


Battle site 


Expansion of Islam: 


■ 


Under Muhammad 


m 


Under Abu Bakr (632-634) 


■ 


Under Umar (634-644) 


n 


Under Uthman (644-656) 
and Ali (656-661) 


a 


Under the Umayyads (661-750) 



29 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Expansion 751—1700 



The tower of the great mosque 
in Kairouan, now in Tunisia, 
dates from the ninth century. 
Built near the site of ancient 
Carthage, the design of three 
superimposed towers is based on 
the lighthouses and watchtowers 
of classical antiquity. 



Islam expanded by conquest and conversion. 
Although it was sometimes said that the faith of 
Islam was spread by the sword, the two are not 
the same. The Koran states unequivocally, 
“There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256). 
Following the precedent established by the 
Prophet, who allowed the Jews and Christians 
to keep their religion if they paid tribute, the 
caliphs granted all the people of the Book 




(including Zoroastrians) the right to maintain 
their religious practices provided they paid the 
jizya tax (tribute), a payment in lieu of military 
service. Initially Islam remained the religion of 
the Arabs, a badge of unity and mark of superi- 
ority. When conversions did occur the converts 
were required to become niawali (clients) of the 
Arab tribes, the assumption being that the 
Arabs retained a hegemonic role. 

Many factors, however, encouraged conver- 
sion after the initial conquests. For those 
Christians who were tired of centuries of eru- 
dite theological wranglings over the precise bal- 
ance between Christ’s divine and human 
natures, Islam provided the hospitality of a reli- 
gion in which Christ had an honored place as a 
forerunner to Muhammad. Likewise for Jews 
Islam could appear as a reformed faith in the 
tradition of Abraham and Moses. Zoroastrians, 
deprived of state support for their religion after 
the Arab conquest of the Sassanian Empire, 
would find in Islam a religion, like theirs, of 
individual ethical responsibility and later, in the 
Shiite idea of a Mahdi (messiah) from the 
House of Ali, a concept similar to the Saoshyant 
of Zoroastrian eschatology. Messianic ideas 
have a universal appeal, and are found in nearly 
all religious traditions. After the Islamic con- 
quests in India, the Awaited Imans of the Shiite 
eschatology would sometimes be identified with 
a forthcoming avatar of Vishnu. In the metro- 
politan areas converts from the older traditions 
helped to detribalize the Arabian religion by 
asserting their rights as Muslims, by emphasiz- 
ing the universality of its message, and by stress- 
ing its legitimizing function in the establishment 
of the new social order and forms of political 
power. Further afield the simplicity of the con- 
version process (the mere utterance before wit- 
nesses of the formula: “There is no god but 



30 



EXPANSION 75 1-1700 



God. Muhammad is the Messenger of God”) 
would contrast favorably with the often com- 
plex conversion procedures of the mystery reli- 
gions. In Subsaharan Africa local spirits could 
be Islamized by incorporating them into the 
Koranic storehouse of angels, djinns, and devils. 
Ancestor cults could be accommodated by 
grafting local kinship groups onto Arab or Sufi 
spiritual lineages. 

There were also more worldly considera- 
tions behind many conversions. Islamic mar- 
riage rules are weighted in favor of spreading 
the faith, for while a woman from one of the 
ahl al-dhimma (protected communities) who 
marries a Muslim is not required to change 
her religion, the converse does not apply, and 
the children are expected to be brought up as 
Muslims, ensuring the Islamization of subse- 
quent generations. This demographic advan- 
tage would have carried considerable weight 
in societies where it was customary for the 
victors to marry the women of defeated 
tribes. More generally, there exists the natu- 
ral tendency of bright and ambitious individ- 
uals to enter the ranks of the ruling elites. As 
Islamic society developed in metropolitan 
areas such as the cities of Iran and Iraq, 
knowledge of the Law and the Traditions of 
the Prophet, alongside secular learning in 
such fields as literature, astronomy, philoso- 
phy, medicine, and mathematics, became the 
mark of distinction among the patrician 
classes. Conversions inspired by social ambi- 
tion should not be dismissed as mere oppor- 
tunism: at its high point in the classical era, 
the Islamic world was the most developed 
and sophisticated society outside China. The 
models of urbane sobriety and order it 
offered would have exercised their own 
appeal quite apart from conscious missionary 
activity. Peoples on the fringes of the core 
regions would have encountered the faith in 



numerous guises: educated, literate mer- 
chants, wandering scholar-teachers, charis- 
matic dervishes, native princes with impres- 
sive retinues, sophisticated intellectuals and 
dais (missionaries) from esoteric traditions 
who specialized in tailoring their message 
and rituals to suit audiences of widely differ- 
ent cultural backgrounds. Lacking a central- 
ly directed missionary program, the religion 
has proved itself sufficiently adaptable to 
spread organically. 



This Koran, written using 
muhaqqaq script, was produced 
in Baghdad in 1308. The large 
format indicates that this 
manuscript was a presentation 
copy, used for public recitation 
in the mosque. 




31 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



165 “ 150 “ 135 “ 120 “ 105 “ 90 “ 75 “ 60 “ 45 “ 30 “ 15 “ 




32 




EXPANSION 75 1-1700 




• Okhotsk 



It Petersburg 



Moscow 



HOLY < 
ROMAN 
EMPIRE 4 



POLANI 



KALMYKS 



Constantinople 



MANCHU 

CHINESE 

EMPIRE 



JAPAN 



KOREA 



PAPAL 



STATES 



Formosa 



>tate; 



• Mecca 



ARAKANA AVA V 'T 



Philippine Is. 



Goa • 

MARATHA 

TERRITORY 



IDARFUR 



BORNUi 



Manila 



statt 



CAMBODIA 



5AYLAN 



OYO 



OROMO 



Malacca 



Bornec 



t city states 
Mombasa 



Sumatrc 



New Guinea 



LUBA 



CONGO. 



LUND/ 



( isil5g4^AM 



Luanda 



Comoro Is. 



Timor 



Mozambique 



Mauritius 



Bourbon 

(Reunion) 



Delagoa Bay 



•SA 

Cape Town 



33 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Sunnis, Shiites, and Khariji 660— c. 1000 



The major divisions of Islam, revolving 
around the question of leadership, go back 
to the death of the Prophet but were intensi- 
fied by the first civil war (656-661) and its 
aftermath in the following generation 
(680-81). The first caliph, Abu Bakr, had 
been one of the Prophet’s oldest companions 
and the father of his youngest wife, Aisha. 
On the Prophet’s death he had been chosen 
by acclamation with the powerful support of 
Umar, an early convert and natural leader. 
When Abu Bakr died Umar’s caliphate was 
generally acknowledged, and it was during 
his ten-year reign that the Muslim state 
began to take shape. Under Umar the ten- 
sions resulting from the conquests, over the 
distribution of booty and the status of trib- 
al leaders in the new Muslim order, began to 
surface. The tensions were kept in check 
under Umar’s stern and puritanical rule but 
would surface disastrously during the reign 
of his successor, Uthman, who was mur- 
dered in Medina by disgruntled soldiers 
returning from Egypt and Iraq. Though 
renowned for his commitment to the new 
religion as an early convert, Uthman was 
linked to the Umayyad clan in Mecca that 
had originally opposed Muhammad’s mes- 
sage. He was accused of favoring his fellow 
clansmen at the expense of more pious 
Muslims. The latter congregated around 
Ali, the Prophet’s cousin and closest surviv- 
ing male relative, who was already regarded 
by some of his followers as the originally 
designated successor to the Prophet, and 
who now assumed the role of caliph. Ali’s 
failure to punish Uthman’s assassins pro- 
voked a rebellion by two of Muhammad’s 
closest companions, Talha and Zubayr, sup- 
ported by Aisha. Though he defeated Talha 
and Zubayr, Ali failed to overcome 
Uthman’s kinsman Muawiya, the governor 
of Syria, at the Battle of Siffin. His eventual 



decision to seek a compromise with 
Muawiya provoked a rebellion among his 
more militant supporters, who came to be 
known as Kharijis (seceders). Though Ali 
defeated the Kharijis in July 658, enough of 
them survived to continue the movement, 
which has lasted to this day in a moderate 
version known as Ibadism. One of the 
Khariji leaders, Ibn Muljam, avenged his 
comrades by murdering Ali in 661. Ali’s 
elder son Hasan made an accommodation 
with the victorious Muawiya, who became 
the first Umayyad caliph. On Muawiya’s 
death in 680, when the succession passed to 
Muawiya’s son, Yazid, Ali’s younger son 
Hussein made an unsuccessful bid to restore 
the caliphate to the Prophet Muhammad’s 
closest descendants. The massacre of 
Hussein and a small group of followers at 
Karbala in 680 by Yazid’s soldiers provoked 
a movement of repentance among Ali’s sup- 
porters in Iraq. They became known as the 
Shiites, the “partisans” of Ali. 



The Mughal emperors and their descendants had 
an abiding interest in the history and wisdom of 
their faith. This was expressed both in their 
memoirs and in their paintings. By the mid- 
1600s, the Emperor Jahangir’s artists had 
developed a format in which two or more sages, 
or holy men, were depicted seated in discussion. 
Mughal artists did not shrink from depicting 
fabled holy men from the past as if they were 
still alive. The figures in this painting represent 
the Muslim orthodoxy, with the only 
nonconformist being the bare-headed dervish 
seated at the lower left. 



34 



SUNNIS, SHIITES, AND KHARIJI 660-c. 1000 




35 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Abbasid Caliphate under Harun al-Rashid 




A romanticized nineteenth- 
century portrait of Harun al- 
Rashid with an Ottoman-style 
mosque in the background. The 
revival of the caliphate by the 
Ottoman sultans was intended 
to grant them rights over the 
Muslim subjects of European 
powers to balance the rights 
claimed by the latter over the 
sultan’s Christian subjects. 



The reign of caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 
764—809) marked the height of military con- 
quests and territorial acquisition under the 
Abbasids, with the caliphate extending from the 
boundaries of India and Central Asia to Egypt 
and North Africa. 

Harun rose through the ranks as a military 
commander before assuming the caliphate from 
his murdered brother al-Hadi (r. 785-86) and 
served variously as governor of Ifriqiya (mod- 
ern-day Tunisia), Egypt, Syria, Armenia, and 
Azerbaijan. His military campaigns against the 



X 



Byzantines kept them at bay. Upon becoming 
caliph in 764, Harun established diplomatic 
relations with Charlemagne (r. 742-814) and 
the Byzantine emperor. Diplomatic and com- 
mercial ties were also established with China. 

Harun’s reign is often referred to as the Gold- 
en Age, a period of significant cultural and lit- 
erary activity during which the arts, Arabic 
grammar, literature, and music flourished under 
his patronage. Al-Rashid 
figures prominently in the 
famous literary compila- 
tion One Thousand and 
One Nights. Among his 
courtiers were the poet 
Abu Nuwas (d. 815), who 
was renowned for his 
wine and his love poetry, 
and the musician Ibrahim 
al-Mawsili (d. 804). Abu 
T Hasan al-Kisai (d. 805), 
who was tutor to al- 
Rashid and his sons, was 
the leading Arabic gram- 
marian and Koran reciter 
of his day. The classical 
texts were translated from 
Greek, Syriac, and other 
languages into Arabic. 

Harun was famous for his 
largesse: a well-turned 
poem could earn the gift 
of a horse, a bag of gold, 
or even a country estate. 

His wife Zubaida was 
famous for her charities, 
especially for causing 
numerous wells to be dug 
on the pilgrimage route 
from Iraq to Medina. 



A 



% 



X 

7- S', 






M 













36 




ABBASID CALIPHATE UNDER HARUN AL-RASHID 



Sufism (Islamic mysticism) flourished under 
the caliph. The famous ascetic and mystic 
Maruf al-Karkh (d. c.815) was among the lead- 
ing expositors of Sufism in Baghdad. By con- 
trast, Harun instituted a policy of repressing the 
Shiites, who were thought to challenge this rule. 

The latter half of Harun’s reign was 
marked by political instability. The granting 
of semiautonomy to the governor of Ifriqiya, 
Ibrahim b. al-Aghlab, in 800, followed by 
Harun’s destruction of the all-powerful al- 



Barmaki family, led to a period of political 
and territorial decline. Harun’s decision to 
divide the empire between his two sons al- 
Amin and al-Mamun, appointing the elder al- 
Arnin (r. 809-813) as his successor, con- 
tributed to a two-year civil war that was fol- 
lowed by periods of continued instability and 
insurrection. The reign of al-Mamun (r. 
813-833), though intellectually brilliant, was 
marked by territorial decline and the waning 
of Abbasid influence. 



Abbasid Empire 

c. 850 


□ 


Extent of Abbasid Empire 786-809 


□ 


Other Muslim dynasties 


□ 


Islamic expansion 750-850 


■ 


Byzantine Empire 




Abbasid campaigns 




Islamic naval attacks 




Saffarid incursions 


— 


Qarmation expansion 




37 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Spread of Islam, Islamic Law, and Arabic Language 



The rapid spread of Islam acted as a formida- 
ble force of change in the Old World. By the 
end of the reign of Umar ibn al-Khattab (d. 
644), the whole of the Arabian Peninsula was 
conquered, together with most of the Sasan- 
ian Empire, as well as the Syrian and Egyptian 
provinces of Byzantium. Following the tragic 
Battle of Karbala, which led to the death of 
Imam al-Hussein (ad 680), a new phase was 
ushered in with the making of the Umayyad 
Empire (661-750), which eventually extended 
its dominion from the Ebro River in Spain to 
the Oxus Valley in Central Asia. Claiming uni- 
versal authority over far-reaching frontiers, 
the Umayyad dynasty took Damascus as its 
capital city, and remained virtually unchal- 
lenged in its reign until the rise of the Abbasid 
caliphate with its capital in Baghdad 
(749-1258). While Spain continued to be 
under Umayyad rule (756-1031), new regional 
powers confronted the Abbasid hegemony, like 
the Fatimids in Egypt (909-1171), and the 
Saljuqs in Iran and Iraq (1038-1194), along 
with waves of Crusader invaders in the Levant. 

Numerous traditions in thought flourished, 
like the Sunni schools of legal reasoning 
(hanafi, maliki, shafii, hanbali) and the 
“Twelver Shiite” lineage descending from the 
Imam Ah ibn Abi Talib (d. 661). The upsurge in 
intellectual activities was also marked by the 
founding of the mutazila and ashari methods of 
kalam, in addition to the maturation of philos- 
ophy, the sciences, and mysticism. Many 
notable centers of learning were established, 
along with associated productions of manu- 
scripts, like al-Azhar in Cairo, the Zaytuna in 
Tunis, the Qarawiyyin in Fez, the coteries of 
Cordoba in Andalusia, the schools of Najaf and 
Karbala in Iraq, and those of Qumm and Mash- 
had in Iran. 



Being the language of the Koran, Arabic 
was carried to the new converts. Becoming 
the lingua franca of medieval Islam, the dis- 
tinctiveness of Arabic was evident in all 
spheres of high culture, from religious to 
legal, official, intellectual, and literary dic- 
tions. While in the western provinces Arabic 
dominated the vernacular dialects, Persian 
remained in use eastward; witnessing a liter- 
ary revival in the tenth century AD with the 
unfurling of an Arabo-Persian idiom, which 
became prevalent across Iran as well as 
Transoxiana and northern India. 

A theme that recurs in this formative peri- 
od of Islamic thought is the relationship, 
often tense, between revelation and reason. 
Under the Abbasid caliph al-Mamun (r. 
813-833) there existed a group of theologians 
known as the Mutazila. They had absorbed 
the work of Greek philosophers and adopted 
a rationalist style of argumentation that 
equated God with pure reason. For the 
Mutazila the world created by God operated 
according to rational principles humans could 
understand by exercising reason. As free 
agents, humans were morally responsible for 
their actions, and since good and evil had 
intrinsic value, God’s justice was constrained 
by universal laws. They held to the view that 
the Koran was created in time, inspired by 
God in Muhammad, but not part of his 
essence. Their opponents, the hadith scholars, 
insisted that the Koran was “uncreated” and 
coeternal with God. They believed it was not 
for man to question God’s injunctions or 
explore them intellectually, and that all 
human action was ultimately predetermined. 
The Mutazili view, buttressed by the mihna 
(an “inquisition” or test applied to ulama and 
public officials), held sway for a period. How- 



38 



SPREAD OF ISLAM, ISLAMIC LAW, AND ARABIC LANGUAGE 



ever, it was reversed under 
his successor al-Mutawakil 
(r. 847-61) as a result of 
populist pressures focused 
on the heroic figure of 
Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855) 
who resisted imprisonment 
and torture to defend the 
“uncreated” Koran. A kind 
of compromise between 
reason and revelation was 
reached in the work of Abul 
Hasan al-Ashari (d. 935). 
He used rationalistic meth- 
ods to defend the “uncreat- 
ed” Koran and allowed for a 
degree of human responsi- 
bility. However, the conse- 
quences of the Mutazili 
defeat were far reaching. 
The caliphs ceased to be the 
ultimate authorities in doc- 
trinal matters. Mainstream 
Sunni theologians espoused 
the command theory of 
ethics: an act is right 

because God commands it, 
God does not command it 
because it is right. Mutazil- 
ism is a term of abuse for 
many conservative Islamists, 
especially in Saudi Arabia, 
which follows the Hanbali 
tradition in law. 



The courtyard at al-Azhar in 
Cairo, founded by the Shiite 
Fatimids in 970. Al-Azhar became 
the foremost center of Sunni 
scholarship and an important 
source of manuscripts. 




39 






HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Successor States to 1100 



This clay model clearly shows 
the physical features that Arab 
and Persian commentators noted 
as typical of the Turkish soldiers 
recruited by the caliphs. 




Even at its maximum extent the Abbasid 
Empire failed to contain the whole Islamic 
world. In Spain an independent dynasty had 
been founded by an Umayyad survivor, Abd 
al-Rahman I (r. 756-788). A grandson of the 
Caliph Hisham, he escaped the massacre of 
his kinsmen and after various adventures 
made his way to the peninsula. Here he per- 
suaded feuding Arabs and Berbers to accept 
him as their leader, instead of the governor 
sent by the Abbasids. In what is now Moroc- 
co, a descendant of Ali and Fatima, Idris bin 
Abdullah, who escaped from Arabia after 
the failure of a Shiite revolt in 786, arrived at 
the old Roman capital of Volubilis. Here he 
formed a tribal coalition, which rapidly con- 
quered southern Morocco. His son Idris II 
founded Fez in 808. In Tunisia (Ifriqiya) the 
descendants of Ibrahim ibn Aghlab, Harun 
al-Rashid’s governor, who had been granted 



autonomy in return for an annual tribute, 
founded a dynasty that lasted until 909. The 
puritanical Kharijis, who held to the princi- 
ple of an elected imam or caliph, established 
independent states based in Wargala oasis, 
Tahert, and Sijilmassa. Of Tahert, destroyed 




Post-Imperial Successor 
Regimes late 10th Century 

Abbasid Caliphate c. 900 

] Byzantine Empire 

Fatimids 

J Hamadanids 
■ Buyids 
] Samanids 

m Ghurids 



40 





SUCCESSOR STATES TO 1100 



by the Fatimids in the tenth century, the 
chronicler Ibn Saghir wrote: 

“There was not a foreigner who stopped in 
the city but settled among them and built in 
their midst, attracted by the plenty there, the 
equitable conduct of the Imam, his just behav- 
ior toward those under his charge, and the 
security enjoyed by all in person and property.” 



At the heart of the empire, however, polit- 
ical and religious tensions were rife. The dis- 
puted succession between Harun’s sons 
Amin and Mamun led to a civil war that last- 
ed a decade, weakening the Abbasid armies 
and the institution of the caliphate. Though 
Mamun won the war, his attempt to impose 
the Mutazili doctrine of the “created” Koran 




Khwarizm 



Sanaa! 



>aristan 

* Rayy 
Qom 



Ghazni 



• ^amarra 

• Ba ghdad 
K *rbala 

Iraq 



Herat 



Isfahan 



Ahwaz 



Shiraz 



Bah raj 



41 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



met with strong resistance from the populist 
ulama (religious scholars) grouped around 
Ahmad Ibn Hanbal. For the latter, who saw 
the divine text as “uncreated” or eternal, the 
doctrine of the created Koran derogated 
from the idea of the Koran as God’s speech. 
They looked to the Koran and the emerging 
corpus of hadiths (traditions or reports 
about the Prophet Muhammad) as the sole 
sources of religious authority, with them- 
selves as qualified interpreters. They regard- 
ed the caliph as the executive of the will of 
the community, not the source of its beliefs. 

As the caliph’s religious authority weak- 
ened, so did his political and economic con- 
trol. In cultivated regions including Iraq the 
system of iqta (tax-farming) built up a class 
of landlords at the expense of central gov- 
ernment. In Iran and the eastern provinces 



Mamun’s most effective general, Tahir, 
established a hereditary governorate. To off- 
set the power of the Tahirids Mamun’s suc- 
cessor Mutasim relied increasingly on merce- 
naries recruited from Turkish-speaking 
tribes in Central Asia — a practice that has- 
tened the breakup of the empire and the 
establishment of de facto tribal dynasties. 
The construction of a new capital at Samar- 
ra further isolated the caliph from his sub- 
jects. By the end of the tenth century the 
Abbasid caliphs were mainly titular mon- 
archs, their legitimacy challenged by 
claimants in the line of Ali. The most radical 
of these movements, the Qaramatians, 
fomented peasant and nomad rebellions in 
Iraq, Syria, and Arabia in the name of a mes- 
siah descended from Ali through his descen- 
dant Ismail bin Jaafar. In the 920s the Qara- 




Post-lmperial Successor 
Regimes early 11th Century 

■ Byzantine Empire 
Fatimids 

■ Qarkhanids 
j_ J Buyids 
□ Ghaznavids 



Qo in 

• Isfahan 



• Gh& znl 



Afghanis 



lnd ,a 



42 



SUCCESSOR STATES TO 1100 



matians, who created an independent state in 
Bahrain, shocked the whole Muslim world by 
pillaging Mecca and carrying off the Black 
Stone. In 969 Egypt — already semi-inde- 
pendent under Ibn Tulun and his successors, 
the Ikhshids — was taken over by the Ismaili 
Fatimids, who established a new caliphate 
under a “living imam” descended from Ali 
and Ismail. In northern Syria and the Upper 
Tigris the bedouin Arab Hamdan family — 
also Shiite — ruled a semi-autonomous, 
sometimes independent, state. In Khurasan 
and Transoxiana the Samanid family 
replaced the Tahirids as defenders of the 
mixed Arab-Persian high culture against 
incoming nomadic tribes. Even in the central 
heartlands of the empire — Iraq and western 
Iran — the caliphs were virtual prisoners of 
the Shiite Buyids, a warrior clan from Day- 
lam, south of the Caspian. 

In Inner Asia, where the Samanids had 
established a flourishing capital in Bukhara, 
the adoption of Islam by Turk- 
ish-speaking tribes subverted the 
role of the Samanids as ghazis. 

These were frontier warriors 
entrusted with the defense of 
Islam against nomadic incur- 
sions. The practice of recruiting warrior- 
slaves, known as mamluks or ghulams, from 
mountainous or arid regions hastened the 
disintegration of the empire. When 
power declined at the center, the 
mamluks went on to establish 
their own “slave-dynasties.” 

Thus the Ghaznavids who supplant- 
ed their former Samanid overlords in 
Khurasan started as slave-soldiers in the fron- 
tier region of Ghazna, south of Kabul. When 
the Samanid regime collapsed in 999, Mah- 
mud of Ghazna (r. 998-1030), son of a slave- 
governor, divided their territory with the 



Turkish tribe of Qarluqs, led by the 
Qaraqanid dynasty, which he did his best to 
confine to the Oxus basin in the north. Mah- 
mud crossed the Indus Valley, establishing 
permanent rule in the Punjab, and conducted 
raids into northwestern India, plundering 
cities and destroying numerous works of art 
as idolatrous. This earned him a fearsome 
reputation as a ghazi against the infidel. On 
his western front, in the lands of “old Islam” 
he pushed the Buyids back almost to the fron- 
tiers of Iraq. 



Mahmud of Ghazna crosses the Ganges. The 
Ghaznavids, Turkish military governors, enjoyed great 
renown in later times as the first to extend Muslim 
power into India. This image is from the Compendium of 
Chronicals, composed for the vizier Rashid al-Din in the 
early fourteenth century. 




43 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



The Saljuq Era 




Following the rapid advance of 
the Saljuqs into Anatolia, Konya 
( formerly Iconium) became their 
capital. This elaborately 
decorated portal from the lnce 
Minare Madrasa shows the 
extraordinary richness of the 
Saljuq style. The “ Slender 
Minaret ” from which the school 
takes its name was partially 
destroyed by lightning in 1900. 



Despite challenges to their authority and the loss 
of military and effective political power, the 
Abbasid caliphs retained immense prestige in the 
eyes of most townspeople and many of the tribes 
as the lawful successors to the 
Prophet and heads of the Muslim 
community. The division of the 
world into Dar al-Islam and Dar 
al-Harb facilitated the spread of 
Islam centripetally as well as cen- 
trifugally: when tribes from the 
margins who encountered Muslim 
merchants, scholars, or wandering 
Sufis, accepted Islam the caliphs 
tended to legitimize their rule, 
appointing their leaders as gover- 
nors. Conversion civilized the 
nomadic and pastoral peoples by 
subjecting them formally (if not 
always in practice) to the Sharia 
law, reducing the cultural differences between 
the peoples of the desert and steppes and those 
of the cities and settled regions. Tribes recently 
converted often became the greatest builders and 
patrons of Islamic high culture in art, architec- 
ture, and literature. At the same time conversion 
made it difficult for rulers to defend their heart- 
lands from nomadic predators, since if the 
nomads were no longer infidels the jihad (strug- 
gle or “holy war”) launched against them lost its 
raison d’etre. 

Two Turkish-speaking peoples, the Qarluqs 
and the Oghuz, established states that made sig- 
nificant contributions to this process. In Tran- 
soxiana the Qaraqanid dynasty accepted the 
nominal authority of the Abbasid caliphs, 
becoming the patrons of a new Turkish culture 
derived in part from Arab and Persian models. 
After defeating the Ghaznavids the Oghuz peo- 
ple, led by the Saljuq family, became the rulers of 



Khurasan, laying the foundations of the Saljuq 
Empire. Defeating the Buyids in 1055 they took 
control of Baghdad, where the caliph crowned 
their leader Tughril Beg Sultan in acknowledg- 




44 



THE SALJUQ ERA 



ment of his supreme authority In exchange for 
formal recognition, the sultans agreed to uphold 
Islamic law and defend Islam from its external 
enemies. The massive defeat inflicted by the 
Saljuqs on the Byzantine army at Manzikert in 
1071 was one of the factors leading to the First 



Crusade in 1096. Although the Saljuqs con- 
quered half of Anatolia, laying the foundations 
for later Ottoman-Turkish rule, their system of 
authority was too fragmented to maintain the 
unity of the empire, or to defend the frontiers of 
Islam against further nomadic incursions. 




Urgen‘ 



Dandangan » Bu khara • 



Manzikert 
107 1 



MistoP ut • 



’aniascus 



Hamadan 

Kermanshah 



Baghdad 



• Isfahan 



Shiraz 



• Medin; 



Muscat 



• Mecca 



The Saljuq Era 




Major Saljuq campaign 


■ 


Saljuq sultanate at its 
maximum extent, c. 1090 


n 


Byzantine Empire, c. 1095 


m 


Territory lost to Byzantine 
Empire and Crusader 
states, 1097-99 


o 


Extent of the Khwarizm 
Shahdom, c. 1220 



45 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Military Recruitment 900—1800 

The recruitment of armies from the peripher- 
al regions, mainly from the steppelands of 
inner Asia, the Caucasus, and the Balkans, 
became the most distinctive feature of the 
Islamic systems of governance until modern 
times. Known as mamluks — “owned ones” — 
these warriors were purchased as slaves front 
the highlands and steppes or captured from 
defeated tribes. Brought in as the sultan’s pri- 
vate armies and palace bodyguards, they were 
taught the rudiments of the Islamic faith and 
culture and trained in the military arts. 
Attaching the word “slave” to mamluks (as in 
“slave-warriors” or “slave-dynasties”) is 
somewhat misleading. Though mamluks and 
ghulams (household slaves) were bought and 
sold as personal property, their social position 
reflected that of their masters, rather than 
their own servile status. Eventually manumit- 
ted they became freedmen, clients of their for- 
mer masters entitled to property rights, mar- 
riage, and personal security, with some of 
them rising to become rulers. 

The practice of mamlukism started with 
the Abbasid caliphs, who recruited tribes 
from Transoxiana, Armenia, and North 
Africa to offset the power of the Tahirids. 
They balanced these tribes with Turkish ghu- 
lanis who were purchased individually before 
being trained and drafted into regiments 
under individual commanders. Since they 
were housed in separate cantonments, with 
their own mosques and markets, their alle- 
giance was to their commanders, rather than 
to the caliphs. In the breakup of the empire 
after 945 the practice was adopted by the de- 
facto rulers who inherited the political power 
of the Abbasids. All the post-Abbasid states 
in the East — the Buyids, Ghaznavids, Qara- 
qanids, and Saljuqs — were created by ethnic 
minorities, including mercenaries from the 
Caspian region, and Turkish and other 
nomadic peoples from inner Asia. Since new 



military rulers had no ethnic, cultural, lin- 
guistic, or historical connection with the peo- 
ples over whom they ruled, society tended to 
develop outside the purview of the state, with 
the ulama — the religious scholars and experts 
on law — merging with merchant and 
landowning families to form elites of nota- 
bles whose prestige was dependent on reli- 
gious knowledge. While allowing a form of 
civil society to develop separately from the 
military state, the practice of mamlukism 
militated against the type of communal loy- 
alties or patriotisms that would emerge in 
Western Europe at a later period. The pattern 



THE 
HOLY ROMAN 



ATLANTIC 

OCEAN 



EMPIRE 



FRANCE 



• Santiago 




L Buda^ 

.6# 

2 r — Marseilles 



Madrid 



» Barcelona 



Corsica 



Rome 



SPAIN Balearic Is. Sardinia 
d i t 



v Ceuta 



M e 

» Algiers 




Naples 



Sicily 



M 



ALGIERS 



Trnnis 

TUNIS 



R I 



e 





Sab 


Military Recruitment c. isoo 




Movements of troops 


0 


Janissaries, from Balkans 


0 


Circassians, from Caucasus 


0 


Turkic nomads, from Central Asia 


0 


Al-Qaitis, from Yemen 


0 


South Atlas, from South Atlas Mountains 



46 



MILITARY RECRUITMENT 900-1800 



of recruiting erstwhile nomadic predators to 
defend society against other nomads — of 
making “wolves into sheepdogs” — is found 
throughout the Muslim heartlands, from the 
Maghreb to the Indus Valley. 

The system of military slavery reached its 
fullest development in Egypt, a densely popu- 
lated country of peasant cultivators without 
an indigenous military class. The system was 
institutionalized so successfully that marnluk 
rule lasted for more than two and a half cen- 
turies (1250-1517), and resurfaced in a mod- 
ifed form under the Ottomans (1517-1811). 
By constantly replenishing their ranks from 
abroad (firstly from among the Kipchak 
Turks from Central Asia, later from among 



the Circassians in the Caucasus) the Egyptian 
mamluks resisted becoming absorbed into the 
ranks of the indigenous elites. For the most 
part they remained a one-generation aristoc- 
racy, without ties of blood to the rest of 
Egyptian society. 

Under the Ottomans military slavery 
evolved in a somewhat different direction. 
From the late fourteenth century the sultans 
began to offset the power of their sipahi cav- 
alry units levied from the estates of the nobil- 
ity or recruited as mercenaries from Arabic, 
Kurdish, and Farsi-speaking nomads, an 
infantry corps of “new troops”, Janissaries, 
levied mainly from its Christian provinces in 
the Balkans. The levy (known as the 




POLAND-LIT] 



Sarai-Berke 



MOLDAVIA 



KHANATE 
OF ASTRAKHAN 



>F CraMEA 



Caspian 

Sea 



Goristanth 



Tashkent 



Shemakha 



Balkh 



Tabriz 



Mosul / 



Kabul 



iSHMIl 



Isfahan" 



Baghdad 



PUNJAB 



Alexandria, 



MULTAN 



EMPIRE OF Cairo 



NEPAL 



Delhi 



MAMLUKES 



RAJPUTANA 



lormi 



BIHAR 



SIND 



BUNDEL- 
MALWA KHAND 



[uscat 



BENGAL 



GUJERAT 



DamahJ 



BERAR 



SuakinX* 



/ ORISSA Bay of 

• GOLCONDA Bengal 
lyderabad 



AHMADNAGAR 



UJAPUR 



<MEN 



VIJAYAN; 



ABYSSINIA 



CHIA 



MONGOLISTAN 

• Kucha 



47 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



devshirme) was conducted in the villages 
about every four years: the towns were usual- 
ly exempt, as the sons of townsfolk were con- 
sidered too well educated or insufficiently 
hardy. Boys between 13 and 18 were selected 
(although there are reports of children as 
young as 8 being chosen). Since married men 
were exempt, the Orthodox peasants often 
married off their children very young to avoid 
the levy. The selected boys (estimates are put 
at around 20 percent) were given Muslim 
identities and trained in the arts of war, with 
the brightest selected for personal service to 
the sultan, where they often rose to be rulers 
of the empire. Although slave recruitment 
ceased in the 1640s the Janissaries continued 
to prosper, with increasing numbers of Mus- 
lim-born boys joining their ranks. Having 
substantial commercial interests, salaries, and 
state-funded pensions they became a privi- 
leged and tyrannical elite, resistant to change. 
In 1826 Sultan Mahmud II used his newly 
formed military force to slaughter most of 
them at a muster in Istanbul. 



The Janissary corps, dressed in their gold finery, parade at 
a court reception. Originally recruited from the Christian 
Balkans, the Janissaries became a formidable power 
within the state. Sultan Mahmud 11 abolished the 
Janissaries in 1826, as part of his program of 
modernization. 




48 



MILITARY RECRUITMENT 900-1800 




49 










HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Fatimid Empire 909—1171 

The Shiite Ismaili caliphate of the Fatimids was 
established in Ifriqiya in the Maghreb when a 
group of Kutama Berbers accepted the claims of 
Abdallah al-Mahdi to be the rightful descen- 
dant of Ah and Fatima and rose against the 
Aghlabids in 909. By 921, al-Mahdi had settled 
in his new capital city of Mahdiyya on the 
coastline of Ifriqiya. As successors to the Agh- 
labids, the Fatimids also inherited their fleet and 
the island of Siqilliyya (Sicily). By the end of al- 
Mahdi’s reign (909-934), the Fatimid state 
extended from present-day Algeria and Tunisia 
to the Libyan coast of Tripolitania. The third 
Fatimid caliph al-Mansur (r. 946-953) built a 
new capital city named Mansuriyya after him- 
self. Situated near Sabra to the south of 
Qayrawan, Mansuriyya served as the Fatimid 
capital from 948 until 973. 

Fatimid rule was firmly established in North 
Africa only during the reign of the fourth mem- 
ber of the dynasty al-Muizz (r. 953-975), who 
transformed the Fatimid caliphate from a 
regional power into a great empire. He suc- 
ceeded in subduing the entire Maghreb, with 
the exception of Sabra, before concerning him- 
self with the conquest of Egypt, an objective 
attained in 969. A new Fatimid capital city was 
built outside Fustat; it was initially called 
Mansuriyya, but renamed al-Qahira al- 
Muizziyya (Cairo), “The Victorious City of al- 
Muizz,” when the caliph took possession of his 
new capital in 973. The extension of Fatimid 
power in Syria became the primary foreign pol- 
icy objective of al-Muizz’s son and successor al- 
Aziz (r. 975-996). By the end of his reign, the 
Fatimid Empire had attained, at least nominal- 
ly, its greatest extent, with Fatimid suzerainty 
being recognized from the Atlantic and the 
western Mediterranean to the Red Sea, the 
Hejaz, Syria, and Palestine. By 1038, the 
Fatimids had also extended their authority to 
the emirate of Aleppo. 

In the long reign of al-Mustansir (1036-94), 




menace 
of the Saljuq 
Turks, who were 
laying the foundations 
of a new empire. In 1071, 

Damascus became the capital of 
the new Saljuq principality of Syria and 
Palestine. By the end of al-Mustansir’s rule, of 
the former Fatimid possessions in Syria and 
Palestine, only Ascalon and a few coastal 
towns, like Acre and Tyre, still remained in 
Fatimid hands. By 1048, the Zirids, ruling over 
Ifriqiya on behalf of the Fatimids, placed them- 
selves under Abbasid suzerainty By 1070, when 
they lost Sicily to the Normans, Barqa had 
become the western limit of the Fatimid Empire, 
which soon became effectively limited to only 
Egypt. Ascalon, the last Fatimid foothold in 
Syria-Palestine, was lost to the Franks in 1153. 
Fatimid rule ended in 1171, when Salah al-Din 
(Saladin), who became the last Fatimid vizier 
after taking over Egypt, had the khutba (ser- 



the Fatimid caliphate 
embarked on its decline. 
Northern Syria was 
irrevocably lost in 
1060. By then, 
the Fatimids 
were con- 
fronted 
with the 
grow- 
ing 



50 



FATIMID EMPIRE 909-1171 




Ceramic bowl from Fustat (Cairo), tenth— eleventh 
century. The lusterware design has 
characteristically Fatimid motifs, with a hare 
at the center and the sides decorated 
with stylized plants. 



• Derbend 



Bukhara 






cArdabil 



Mishapur 



J ,a Nehavend 

buwayhid emirates 



gha ^ 1 



MAHMUD 



Baghdad Q Isfahan 



Istakar 



Arabia* 1 



Medina 



Muscat 



mon) read in Cairo in the name of the reigning 
Abbasid caliph while the last Fatimid caliph, al- 
Adid (r. 1160-71), lay dying in his palace. 



Fatimid Empire and other 
Islamic States c.iooo 

] Fatimid Empire c. 1000 

□ Abbasid caliphate at its 
greatest extent 

□ Abbasid caliphate, c. 900 
Major battle 



si 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Trade Routes c. 700—1500 



Muhammad is said to have traveled outside 
Arabia as a merchant. His tribe, the Quraish, 
who led the Arab conquests, were among the 
foremost traders in the peninsula. Merchants 
continued to be held in high esteem, often 
marrying into the families of ulama, who they 
supported by endowing their educational 
institutions. Islamic rituals favor commercial 
activity. Mosques are often adjacent to mar- 
kets, and though Friday is the day for congre- 
gational prayer, it was not treated as a sab- 
bath until recent times. Markets opened 
before and after the noonday prayer. Since the 
whole male population was gathered in town, 
Fridays were good days for doing business. 
Similarly, the pilgrimages to Mecca (umra and 
hajj), where Muslims from distant parts of 
the world meet each other, have always been a 
facilitator of trade. Pilgrims would finance 
the long and arduous journey (which in pre- 
modern times could take half a lifetime) by 
trading goods or working as artisans. Mer- 
chants would join the pilgrim caravans to sell 
their goods in the Hejaz. 

By bringing vast areas of territory and 
coastlands under a single government, the 
Arab conquests created an enormous area of 
free trade, facilitating the expansion of trade 
far beyond the empire’s borders. The extent of 
this trade has been revealed by archaeology, 
with significant numbers of coins from 
Abbasid times discovered in Scandinavia, and 
Chinese silks and ceramics found in burial sites 
in western Asia. Muslim merchants were not 
subject to tariffs within the empire. Foreign 
merchants who entered the lands of Islam were 
subject to the same rates imposed on Muslim 
merchants in their homelands. The new elite of 
the caliphal courts, with their demand for lux- 
ury goods, boosted trade. Though the breakup 
of the empire led to economic decline in some 
areas, with rival dynasties augmenting their 
budgets by imposing extra taxes and tariffs, 



the frequency with which such measures were 
denounced as illegal, oppressive, and unjust 
indicates that the general temper remained 
favorable to mercantile activity, even under 
adverse political conditions. 

Initially the Arab conquest had the effect of 
bringing two oceanic trade routes — through 
the Persian Gulf and Red Sea — within a single 
market based on common law, language, and 
currency. Under the Abbasids the most attrac- 
tive route for goods from East and South Asia 
to the Mediterranean went up the Tigris to 
Baghdad, or up the Euphrates to an easy 
portage to Aleppo and from there to a Syrian 
port such as Antioch. The towns along these 
routes depended on the exchange of commodi- 
ties for their existence. 

The Mesopotamian cities absorbed luxury 
goods from India and China. These were sold 
in the markets alongside necessities such as 
food grains, fuel, timber, and cooking oils. 
Mesopotamia was also the terminus of the 
chief land route to China and India as well as 
north to the Volga basin and the well-watered 
lands of Eastern Europe, sources of fur, amber, 
metal goods, and hides. In the earliest period 
Muslim ships from ports such as Basra or 
Hormuz went all the way to China, returning 
after two or three years with cargoes such as 
silk, porcelain, jade, and other valuables. How- 
ever, as the trade became more sophisticated 
merchants no longer traded directly with 
Guangzhou (Canton) and Hangzhou, but 
acquired goods from China at ports in Java, 
Sumatra, or the Malabar coast. 

Muslim merchants from the Maghreb 
were active in the gold trade, which took 
them across the Sahara Desert to the Sahel 
cities of Timbuktu and Gao, and beyond, to 
the goldfields of western Africa. The chain 
of commercial centers established by Muslim 
traders on the east African coast, including 
Lamu, Malindi, and the island of Zanzibar, 



52 



TRADE ROUTES c. 700-1 S00 



extended as far south as Sofala in modern 
Mozambique. Intrepid Muslim travelers 
penetrated the African interior in search of 
gold, slaves, ivory, rare woods, and precious 
stones centuries before Europeans followed 
in their paths. 

When the decline of Abbasid power and 
the incursions of Turkish tribesmen made 
the trans-Syrian route less secure the alter- 
native water route, via the Red Sea and the 
Nile, came into prominence. It was the more 



The land routes linking western Asia and 
the Mediterranean with eastern and south- 
ern Asia were just as important as the mar- 
itime routes. With many cities landlocked or 
distant from rivers and oceans, even bulky 
items had to be carried by animals. Careful 
planning was needed before the caravans set 
out on long journeys. Food had to be pro- 
cured for animals and humans, and nomadic 
tribes had to be hired as guards. In remote 
areas networks of khans (overnight resting 




By the 1500s, the Ottoman 
Empire, with its capital at Con- 
stantinople, had become one of 
the Islamic worlds most impor- 
tant trading centers. The sultan’s 
court, together with his advisors, 
took careful account of annual 
trade. 



difficult as the land route from the Gulf of 
Suez to the Nile was more arduous than the 
route across Syria, except for a brief period 
when the Mamluk sultans revived an ancient 
canal originally dug by the pharaohs. Red 
Sea ports such as Aden, Jidda, Aydhab, and 
Qulzum benefited from this trade, as did 
Cairo and Alexandria. Trade on the Indian 
Ocean was monopolized by Muslims until 
the arrival of the Portuguese, followed by 
the English and Dutch from the sixteenth 
century onward. 



places) or khaniqas (Sufi lodges) provided 
food and hospitality. Some were built like 
fortresses for defense against Bedouin 
marauders. The vast distances over rough 
terrain, combined with the breakdown in 
territorial authority, made road construction 
impracticable. Even by late Roman times, 
wheeled traffic had all but disappeared. The 
results can be seen in many of the cities of 
western Asia and North Africa. Before mod- 
ern times few of them had boulevards broad 
enough for carts or carriages. 



S3 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 




IAPP REINDEER 
HERDERS 



Iceland 

(Denmark) 



/jr_ 

SCOTLAND 



POLAND^ 

LITHUANL 



ENGLAND 



HOLY 

ROMAN 

EMPIRE 



HUNGARY 



FRANCE 



Astral 



Venice, 



Edirne 



/ ^ CVENHSE 

PAPAL 7 • \ 

STATES /Amalfi 



Constantinople 



SPAIN 



PORTO 



- Azores 

(Port.) 



Denia 



.rdabil 



fdoba # 
Almeria . 



Izmir 



Nishapi 



Kairouan 

•sMahdia 



ALGIERS 



Cyprus 



Fez 

Meknes 



Jerusalem 



Marral 



MOROCCO 



Canary Is. 

(Spain) 



Sijilmasa 



Kubra 



Muscat 



GHAR1 



'imbuktu 



inaa 



iNEM- 



LMEN 



;ORNU 



DARFUR 



ADAL 



ETHIOPIA 



Benin 



Elmina 

(Portugal) 



Fernando Poo 



DROMO 



[rail 



Mombasa 

(Portugal) 



LUBA 



LUNDA 



^Zanzibar 

ISLAMIC 

.CITY-STATES 



CONGO 



Madagascar 



<r c 



Q 



, ^^^-^Bamghan 

dad SAFAV 



EMPIF 



Cape Verde Is. 

( p ° r, l SENE' 



Cacheu • 

(Portugal) 



(Port) 



54 



TRADE ROUTES c. 700-1 S00 




.Tashkent 



Chiwa 



.Bukh; 



•Samark; 

•Schar-i^l 



KOREA 



/•Balkh 

UGH 



AJPUTANAV 



Taiwan 



Burmese 

Kingdom? 



S TATES 



Kambaya 



BENGAL 



Thana 



ORISSA 



PEGU 



\VIJAYANAGARA 



Philippine 

Islands 



CAMBODIA 



SAYLAN 

• Ceylon 



ACEH 



Borneo 



Sumatra 



MIC STATES 



SIB1R TATARS 



Trade Routes and Empires 




c. 1500 






Empires 


Routes 




] Portuguese 


— 


Trading routes 


] Spanish 


— 


Gold trade 


] State society 
| Other 




Silk road 



EUMSMN STEPPE AND 






AINU HUNTER- 
GATHERERS 



°«ffr 



No MADs 



MONGOLS 



KALMYKS 



imor 

I Pori.] 



ss 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Crusader Kingdoms 



SALJUQS OF RUM 




GREAT 

SALJUQ 

EMPIRE 



Krak des 
Moabites 



FATIMID 

CALIPHATE 




Segor • 

KINGDOM OF 
JERUSALEM 

Montreal 



Sinai 

Desert 

50 km 




Christian Crusades 




— 


First Crusade, 
1099-1100 


— 


Norwegian 
Crusade, 1107-40 


□ 


Territory held 
by Crusaders to 
1100 


— 


Crusades of Pope 
Calixtus II, 1122-26 


□ 

WA 


Crusaders' 
gains, 1100-44 
Crusaders' 
losses, 1144-45 


WO 


Crusade of 1128-29 

Date of Crusaders' 
conquest 


m 


Muslim territory 


\ 


Maximum range of 
Egyptian warfleet 


m 


Other Christian 
territory 




Prevailing wind 



The Crusades occurred at a time of 
Islamic disunity and retreat. 
There were Christian 
advances in Spain — 
Toledo fell in 1085 — 
and in Sicily, which 
the Normans con- 
quered in 1091-92. 
Economically, the 
decline of the Abbasid 
caliphate and the Saljuq inva- 
sions had diverted the East Asian 
trade away from Baghdad and 
Constantinople. Sending it through Egypt 
and into the hands of Italian merchant shipping, it 
enriched the Italian cities. Harassed by Muslim 
pirates, Pisa and Genoa destroyed Mahdia, the polit- 
ical and commercial capital of Muslim North Africa 
in 1087. The fluctuating frontiers between the 
Byzantine and Fatimid Empires allowed the cities of 
Syria and Palestine considerable autonomy, making it 
difficult for them to unite against the invaders. The 
defeat of the Byzantine army at Manzikert in 1071 
opened the rich Anatolian pastures to migration by 
bands of Oghuz Turks, not all of them under Saljuq 
control. Alarmed at the danger to Christendom 
posed by the Turks as well as by Norman attacks on 
Byzantine lands in Italy, Pope Urban II launched a 
Holy War for the defense and unity of Christendom. 
The movement was stimulated by charismatic, pop- 
ulist preachers such as Peter the Hermit and by the 
growing popularity of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem as 
a way of earning spiritual merit or as an act of atone- 
ment for sins such as murder. 

In the event, the knights from the Latin West, 
(including England, Scandinavia, Germany, Italy, 
and France) supported by ragtag armies of towns- 
folk and peasants lured by the promise of indul- 
gences, were not wholly interested in saving 
Christendom by helping their Orthodox brethren. 
(They actually sacked Constantinople in 1204, 
inflicting untold damage on the capital of Eastern 
Christianity) They wanted to carve out feudal 



56 



CRUSADER KINGDOMS 



domains in the well-watered lands of the 
Mediterranean littoral. The remarkable success of 
the First Crusade, culminating in the capture of 
Jerusalem from the Fatimids in 1099, contained the 
seeds of the Byzantine Empire’s eventual demise. 
The need to support the intrusive Latin states whose 
existence depended on Muslim disunity overrode 
the need to maintain Byzantium’s eastern frontiers. 
For the most part the Franks, as the invaders were 
known, were hated as oppressors by Muslims and 
local Christians alike — not to mention the Jews, 
who lost the protection they had enjoyed under 
Muslim rule, and were massacred in Palestine as 
they had been in Europe. Far from checking the 
Turkish advance on Christian domains, the 
Crusaders’ attacks on Byzantium helped to destroy 
the only polity that could have prevented it. Though 
the Latin kingdoms were eventually eliminated, 
their existence damaged the previously good rela- 
tions that had existed between the eastern churches, 
their Muslim protectors, and local Islamic commu- 
nities, leaving a legacy of mistrust of the West that 
has lasted to the present. 



Entry of the Crusaders into Damietta, Egypt, in June 1249. 
After losing Jerusalem, the Crusaders made several attacks 
on Egypt in the hope of regaining territory in the Holy 
Land. From an illuminated manuscript painted in Acre 
shortly after 1277. This school of illuminators was probably 
founded by Louis IX during his stay in Palestine, 1250—54. 





W Kerak 
(Krak des 
Moabites) 



The Mamluk conquest 
of the coast 


1263-1291 


■ 


Muslim conquests 
1263-1271 


■ 


Muslim conquests 
1285-1290 


■ 


Muslim conquests, 1291 


□ 


Christian territory 
after 1291 


m 


Castle 



57 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Sufi Orders 1100—1900 



The Sufi orders were and remain the most 
important organized expression of Islamic 
spirituality. The word Sufism (from the 
Arabic Sufi, one who wears wool), is 
thought to derive from the coarse woolen 
garments worn by early Muslim ascetics 
who sought to develop an inner spirituality. 
This was sometimes expressed as the quest 
for union with God and it set them apart 
from believers who were content with the 
formal observance of Islamic law and ritual. 
Early adepts, sometimes known as “drunk- 
en” Sufis, cultivated mental states that 
would lead them to experience annihilation 
of the self in the divine presence. The desire 
for ecstatic union with the divine, and the 
pain of separation from it, is the theme of 
much Sufi poetry. Drunken Sufism some- 
times displayed itself in extravagant displays 
aimed at demonstrating contempt for the 
flesh, such as piercing the body with iron 
rings or handling dangerous animals. Sober 
Sufism — exemplified in the teachings of Abu 
Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111) — insisted that 
the path to spiritual fulfillment lay firmly 
within the boundaries of normative legal 
and ritual practice. 

Present from the beginnings of Islam, all 
Sufi movements would claim to have their 
origins in the religious experience of 
Muhammad and his closest Companions 
Abn Bakr and Ali. Organized Sufism, how- 
ever, was consolidated in the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries, gaining ground rapidly 
in Asia in the aftermath of the Mongol 
invasions, when the institutional fabric of 
Muslim life was severely dislocated. 
Internally the Sufi orders cemented the 
sociopolitical order by providing rulers with 
popular sources of religious legitimacy, sup- 
plementing the formal authority conferred 
by the ularna. Many rulers were patrons of 
Sufi orders and placed themselves under the 



spiritual guidance of Sufi masters from 
whose baraka (blessedness or charismatic 
spiritual power) they derived benefit. Further 
afield the Sufi orders were instrumental in 
spreading Islam in peripheral regions such as 
the Malay archipelago, Central Asia, and 
Subsaharan Africa. Access to the normative, 
textual Islam of the ulama, based on the 
Koran, hadith, fiqh (jurisprudence), and 
tafsir (hermeneutics), required knowledge of 
Arabic, restricting its appeal. The Sufi 
shaikhs and pirs, however, were adept at 
spiritual improvisation and were able to con- 
vey Islamic teachings verbally, using local 
languages. The esoteric Sufi rituals, known 
as dhikrs (ceremonies held in remembrance 
of God), allowed them to develop spiritual 
techniques that meshed with practices 
derived from non-Islamic traditions such as 
ritual dances or controlled yoga-style breath- 
ing practiced in India. In Africa Sufis and 
Marabouts (from the Arabic murabit) were 
able to propagate Islam by assimilating local 
deities or spirits to the numinous forces such 
as djinns and angels referred to in the Koran. 
Ancestor cults could be accommodated by 
adding local kinship structures onto Arab 
lineages or Sufi silsilas, chains of spiritual 
authority linking the shaikhs and Marabouts 
to the Prophet and his Companions. In 
peripheral regions such as the High Atlas 
these silsilas provided a quasi-constitutional 
framework through which segmentary tribal 
groups achieved a basic minimum of cooper- 
ation, with leaders of saintly families acting 
as arbiters in intertribal conflicts. In all parts 
of the Muslim world Sufi holy men (and 
occasionally women) became the objects of 
popular veneration. In due course such cults 
became the targets of reformers who regard- 
ed the excessive devotion given to saintly 
mediators as a violation of the Islamic pro- 
hibition on idolatry. 



58 



SUFI ORDERS 1100-1900 




A group of Mevlevi Sufis or 
dervishes ( mendicants ) 
perform their traditional 
whirling ritual. The 
“dance,” a dhikr, or 
“remembrance of God,” 
brings the adept closer to 
the divine, balancing 
spiritual ecstasy with 
formal discipline. The 
Mevlevi order was founded 
by Jalal al-Din Rumi 
(1207—73), the famous Sufi 
poet and mystic. 



59 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



In contrast to the ulama, who tended to 
reflect the consensus of the learned, the Sufi 
tariqas developed elaborate hierarchical 
organizations with spiritual power concen- 
trated into the hands of the leader — known 
variously as the shaikh, murshid, or pir. 
Murids (members or aspirants) were bound 
by the baya, oath of allegiance, to the leader 
or murshid who headed a hierarchy of ranks 
within the order based on ascending spiritu- 
al stages. Although the systems varied con- 
siderably, with some tariqas being more 
exclusive and tightly controlled than others, 
the combination of devotion to the leader 
and rankings within the organization made 
it possible for the tariqas to convert them- 
selves into formidable fighting forces. In the 
Caucasus the Imam Shamil waged his cam- 
paign against the Russians from 1834 to 1839 
under the spiritual authority of his murshid 
and father-in-law Sayyid Jamal al-Din al- 
Ghazi-Ghumuqi, shaikh of the Khalidiyya 
branch of the Naqshbandiyya. In North 
Africa Abd al-Qadir, a shaikh of the 
Qadiriyya, took the lead in the struggle 
against the French; in Cyrenaica the 
Sanusiyya were at the forefront of resistance 
against the Italian occupiers. In other region- 
al contexts, however, the tariqas ran with the 
flow of colonial power. In Morocco during 
the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen- 
turies the influential Tijaniya order accepted 
lavish subsidies from the French, who used 
the order to further their colonial interests. 
In Senegal the Muridiya order founded by 
Amadu Bamba (c. 1850-1927) turned away 
from resistance to develop a work ethic 
based on peanut cultivation that brought 
economic stability to the country under the 
French-dominated regime. 

The tariqas, in many cases, provided the 
leadership for the reform and revival move- 
ments that swept through the Islamic world 



in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 
The term “neo-Sufism” is sometimes applied 
to movements that strive to balance “out- 
ward” political activity with “inner” spiritu- 
al experience, with the structure of the 
tariqa providing the vehicle for the transmis- 
sion and implementation of ideas. A well- 
known example is the Nurculuk movement 
in Turkey founded by Said Nursi (1876- 
1960). A Naqshbandi-trained preacher and 
writer, he sought to revitalize Islamic 
thought by integrating science, tradition, 
theology, and mysticism in a new version of 
the Naqshbandi slogan of “the hand turned 
to work and the heart turned to God.” In 
contrast to the Muslim Brotherhood in 
Egypt, which was also influenced by Sufi 
ideas, the movement works with the grain of 
Turkey’s secular state. 

In recent decades Sufi ideas and devotion- 
al practices have come under attack from two 
quarters — modernists, who regard Sufism as 
retrograde, and Wahhabi-inspired Islamists, 
who have taken over many Islamic insitutions 
with financial support from Saudi Arabia 
and other oil-rich countries. Though the two 
agendas are somewhat different, the conse- 
quences are the same. Modernists, adapting 
the ideas of the European Enlightenment, 
began with demands for a “rational” reli- 
gion. They ended by turning against religion 
altogether. The Islamists, reacting against the 
modernists, are caught in the same “all-or- 
nothing” attitudes. 

Sufism occupies the middle ground 
between modernism and fundamentalism, 
enabling religion to accommodate itself to 
changing social conditions. Without the medi- 
ating, adaptive power of Sufism, it is unlikely 
that the advocates of political Islam (or 
“Islamism”) will succeed in accommodating 
the variegated strands of Islam within the 
“restored” Islamic order that they seek. 



60 



SUFI ORDERS 1100-1900 



Sufi Orders 1145-1389 

• Shrine of founding saint of most important Orders 

] Egyptian and North African tradition derived from Iraqi tradition 
I I Iranian and Central Asian traditions from al-Junaid and al-Bistami 
l\N Iraqi tradition from al-Junaid 



RIFAIYA Major Order in development of institutional Sufism. All subsequent Orders 
trace their lineage back to one or more of these Orders. Located where they 
first developed, although by 1 500 they had spread widely beyond these 
regions except for Mawlawiyya, Qadiriyya, and Chishtiyya 

Alwaiya Other Orders of importance in 1 500, located where they were most prominent 



Order 


Founding Saint 


Site Location 


Suhrawardiyya 


Shihab al-din Abu Hafs Umar (1145-1234) 


Baghdad 


Rifaiyya 


Ahmad ibn Ali al-Rifai (1106-82) 


Umm Abida 


Qadiriyya 


Abd al-Qadir al-Jifani (1077-1106) 


Baghdad 


Shadhiliyya 


Abu Madyan Shuaib (1126-97) 


Tiemcan 




Abul Hasan Ali al-Shadhili (1196-1258) 
Pupil of a pupil of Abu Madyan who gave 
his name to the Order 




Badawiyya 


Ahmad al-Badawi (1199-1276) 


Tanta 


Kubrawiyya 


Najm al-din Kubra (1145-1221) 


Khiva 


Yasawiyya 


Ahmad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ali of Yasi (d. 1166) 


Turkestan 


Mawalawiyya 


Jalal al-din Rumi (1207-73) 


Konya 


Naqshbandiyya 


Muhammad Baha al-din al-Naqshbandi (1318-89) 
Abd al-Khaliq al-Ghujdawani (d. 1220) is regarded 
as the first organizer of the Order 


Bukhara 


Chishtiyya 


Muin al-din Hasan Chishti (1142-1236) 


Ajmer 




61 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Ayyubids and Mamluks 

Having established themselves in a fragment- 
ed part-Muslim world, the Crusader king- 
doms eventually stimulated a united 
response. The revival can be traced to the 
seizure of Aleppo by the Saljuq governor of 
Mosul, Zangi, in 1128. His son Nur al-Din, 
who ruled in Damascus from 1154 to 1174, 
consolidated his power in Syria and Meso- 
potamia, sending his Kurdish general Salah 
al-Din (Saladin) to take control of Egypt in 
1169. Two years later Saladin assumed power 
symbolically by deposing the last of the 




Saladin, depicted here as the 
archetypically heroic Saracen by 
Gustave Dore (1884), was 
equally admired by the Muslims 
and his Crusader foes for his 
sense of honor and humanity. 
His reputation in the West was 
enhanced by the popularity of 
Sir Walter Scotts novel The 
Talisman (1825). 



Fatimid caliphs. He and his descendants, the 
Ayyubids, broadened the appeal of Sunnism 
in Egypt by allowing scholars from the differ- 
ent legal schools to work alongside each 
other, while popular devotion to the House of 
Ali was permitted at the mosque of Hussein, 
where the martyr’s head is buried. From Egypt 
Saladin conquered Syria and upper Meso- 
potamia, restoring a unified state in the East 
for the first time since the early Abbasids. In 
1187 he crowned his achievement by taking 
Jerusalem from the Franks. 

Saladin’s Ayyubid dynasty, however, was not 
to endure. In 1250 the last Ayyubid sultan was 
killed by his Turkish mamluk soldiers. They 
proclaimed their own general sultan, initiating 
more than two and a half centuries of mamluk 
rule. Ten years later the brilliant mamluk gen- 
eral Baybars defeated the Mongol invaders at 
Ayn Jalut in Syria. By 1291 his successors had 
reunited Syria, expelled the last Crusaders, and 
expanded the boundaries of their empire into 
the upper Euphrates valley and Armenia. The 
mamluks kept their Turkish names and the 
exclusive right to ride horses and to own other 
mamluks as slaves. For the most part they mar- 
ried the female slaves who had been imported 
with them. If they married local women or 
took on Muslim-Arab names, they lost caste 
among themselves. When the supply of 
Kipchak Turkish slaves began to run out the 
Kipchak mamluks (known as Bahris) were 
replaced by Circassians (known as Burjis). 
Though most of the sultans tried to establish 
dynasties, their efforts were rarely successful, 
since minors or weaklings were invariably 
ousted by more powerful rivals. Nevertheless 
they demonstrated their devotion to Islam by 
patronizing scholarship and the Sufi orders, 
and by the magnificent buildings, including 
mosques, seminaries, and inns, which they lav- 
ished on Cairo in the distinct and ornate style 
that carries their name. 



62 



AYYUBIDS AND MAMLUKS 



CRETE 



d ' 1 e r r a n e a n S ‘‘' Acre H . at '” 11 54 Mural-Din 

takes Damascus 



Alexandria 




H • Cairo 

1169-1171 
Saladin overthrows 
Fafimid caliphate 



• Yenbo 



Medina 



• Ibrim 

NUBIA 



Aydhab 



HEJAZ 



• Jedda 

a Mecca 



-15‘ 



The Muslim Near East 

1127-1174 


a 


Territory ofZangi, c.1145 




Territory of Nural-Din, c.1174 


■ 


Other Muslim territory, c.1174 


m 


Christian territory, c.1 174 


u 


Seat of caliphate (Abbasid) 


m 


Seat of caliphate (Fatimid) 



0 100 km 



, 



Dahlak 

Islands 



4 $- 



a Sana 

YEMEN 



63 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



The Mongol Invasion 





clear rules of succession. The descendants of 
Ghenghis Khan competed for his legacy, creating 
several independent, sometimes mutually hostile, 
states. They included present-day Mongolia, 
northern China, the realm of the Golden Horde 
(centered in the Volga basin), the Chaghatay 
Khanate in the Oxus (Amu Darya) region, 
and the Ukhan dynasty, which invaded 
Iran and destroyed Saljuq power in 
Anatolia. 

The Mongols were not 
just ruthless and violent 
nomads. Their sys- 
tem of communi- 



Ghenghis Khan in state 
surrounded by his attendants. 
However luxurious his court, as 
shown by this lavishly decorated 
yurt, the Great Khan remained a 
nomad to the end of his life. 



Unlike the deserts of Arabia the steppelands of 
inner Asia are comparatively well watered, with 
extensive grazing for horses. The horseback 
nomads who dwelt there were organized along 
similar lines to the Arabs in patrilineal tribal for- 
mations. Like the Arab and Turkish nomads they 
were able to construct large federations for suc- 
cessful raids on cities and areas of cultivation, 
creating substantial empires under formidable 
leaders: Attila, who 
ravaged central Europe 
in the fifth century 
with his Huns, is a 
well-known example. 
The Chinese emperors 
understood the dan- 
gers of these large for- 
mations of horse- 
borne invaders, and 
used their forces to 
break them up when- 
ever strong enough to 
do so. The Great Wall 
had been built as a 
defensible barrier to 
keep them out. 

Early in the thir- 
teenth century a 
new formation 
developed 
among the 
Mongols in 

a remote region bordering the Siberian 
forests under Ghenghis Khan (c. 1162-1227). 

A clever and ruthless leader, he took command of 
a wide grouping of tribes from about 1206. By 
the time of his death he had dominated most of 
northern China and his armies had reached the 
shores of the Caspian. Divided between his sons, 
the empire continued to expand, overwhelming 
the rest of northern China and sweeping through 
eastern Europe as far as Germany As with other 
nomadic formations, however, there were no 



64 



° F The KHWARlZ- 1 ^ 



THE MONGOL INVASION 




its development. 



:a pilolfro"' ,2J ' 



Cti A gatai 



Khanate 



[BaJasagh, 



Lhasa 



^TAN. 



DELHI 



ASSAM 



BENGAL 



Hanoi 

Daluo" 



yadava 



cations and knowledge of the latest warfare 
techniques were sophisticated enough to enable 
them to wreak unprecedented levels of destruc- 
tion. In the initial conquests, entire populations 
of cities were massacred, without regard to age 
or gender. Buildings were leveled, rotting heads 
stacked in gruesome pyramids. Mongol cruelty 
was a form of psychological warfare designed to 
send the message that resistance was useless. As 
a strategy, terror was highly effective: the 
amirs who governed in the Iranian high- 
lands hastened to demonstrate 
their homage. The local 
bureaucrats and 



families of notables actively collaborated, and 
even encouraged attacks on their Muslim ene- 
mies in order to gain favor with the conquerors. 
Members of the ulama rose to prominence and 
power. For instance, the Sunni historian al- 
Juvaini accompanied the Mongol army under 
the warlord Hulegu to Alarnut, where the last 
Ismaili stronghold to survive the fall of the 
Fatimids was destroyed in 1256. After the con- 
quest of Baghdad two years later, al-Juvaini 
became its governor. Within a few generations 
the western Mongols had converted to Islam, 
opening a brilliant new era in the story of 



Mongol Invasions 1206-59 


OIROTS 


Original tribe 


m 


Homeland of the Mongol 
tribes 


■ 


Mongol Empire, 1206 


n 


Mongol Empire, 1236 


□ 


Mongol Empire, 1259 


Y/A 


Area paying tribute or under 
loose Mongol control 


— 


Mongol campaign 


* 


City sacked by Mongols 


j^\i r 
V ) \ 


y 

0 Y 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Maghreb and Spain 650— 1485 




,X>urs 



Limoges 



Bordeaux 



La Coruna 



Venice 



Turin 



Oviedo 



iantander 



Ab RIANs 



Toulouse 



Florence 



Marseille 



•Ancona 



Oporto 



Barcelona 



Madrid 



Rome 



Toledo 

<712 



Lisbon 711 



Sardinia 



Taranto 



Valencia 



• Palma 



Cordoba 71 1 



Granada 



Gibraltar 



Tangier 



Tahant 



Kairouan 



Meknes 



Tripoli 



Sijilmasa 



Misurata 



Ihadames 



Zawilah 



Murzul 



Muslim conquests in North 
Africa and Europe 


634 to 732 


Conquests under Muhammad 


m 


By 644 


m 


By 720 


— 


Major Muslim campaign 


— 


Further campaigns 




Muslim raids 


X 


Muslim victory 


x 


Muslim defeat 





Trans-Saharan trade routes 



66 



MAGHREB AND SPAIN 650-1485 




LAZIC 



Varna 



Salonika 



Mosul • 



Smyrna 



• Adana 



• Hama 



• Homs 



Cyprus 



• Tripoli 



Crete 



Beirut • 



• Damascus 



lerus: 



Ajdabiy: 



Alexandria 



Tanta • 



Awjilah 



• Luxor 



Medina 



Aswan 



Aidnab 



• Mecca 



Kuffra 



Suakin 



ARABIA 
Under Muhammad 



I lany* 



67 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 




Al-Andalus is the Arabic name for territories 
in the Iberian Peninsula that came under 
Muslim rule and influence for nearly 800 
years. The first Muslim contact with the 
region came in 711. A Muslim army crossed 
the Straits of Gibraltar from North Africa 
and by 716 a number of cities and kingdoms 
had been defeated. The nature and extent of 
Muslim rule in the area was dramatically 



affected by the collapse of the Damascus- 
based Umayyad dynasty in 750. A member of 
the family fled to Spain, becoming a governor 
before initiating a new Umayyad dynasty, 
which eventually declared Iberia and North 
Africa as a separate caliphate. 

Inspired by a more orthodox vision of 
Muslim rule, the two movements arriving in 
North Africa established control over the 



region in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 
They were the Almoravids (1056-1147) and 
the Almohads (1130-1269). By the end of 
Almohad rule, various Christian rulers had 
united to begin the period of reconquista. 
Except for the rule of the Nasrids in Granada 
until 1492, most of the Iberian Peninsula was 
lost to Muslim authority. 

After the 1492 defeat of Granada, most 
Muslims and Jews fled to 
North Africa to avoid the 
Inquisition. Some submitted 
and converted to Christianity, 
while a small number were 
allowed to retain their faith, 
but under much more con- 
strained circumstances. By the 
sixteenth century, however, the 
process of conversion and 
expulsion of Muslims was 
almost complete and the pres- 
ence of Islam in the region 
remained only through cultural 
traces. 

The civilization engendered 
in Muslim Andalusia was 
linked to the broader develop- 
ments in the Middle East and 
North Africa, but was distinc- 
tive in several respects. The art 
and architecture associated 
with the cities of Cordoba, 
Granada, Seville, and Toledo 
remain as landmarks. The literary heritage 
that flowered in the later period was also dis- 
tinctive in its contribution to Romance litera- 
ture. But perhaps the most enduring legacies 
were reflected in the philosophical, theologi- 
cal, and legal writings of Muslims and Jews, 
which would exercise a great influence on 
subsequent Latin scholasticism in Europe. 
Among this tradition’s most outstanding 



Islamic Spain c. 1030 


■ 


Christian states 


□ 


Caliphate of Cordoba to 1031 


Granada 


Islamic kingdoms after 1031 


1 


Archdiocese 


$ 


Important Jewish community 


Population 


□ 


Christian 


% 


Mostly Berber and converts 




Mostly Arab 



68 




MAGHREB AND SPAIN 650-1485 




, ,. Guipuzcoa 
Vizcaya 



KINGDOM 



J Santiago de 
Compostella 



NAVARRE 



Mallen Cfl 



M Castrotorafe 



Belchite 



M Castronuno 



Tarragona 



pouro 



Penausende 



Alfambra 



j’ulpis Peniscola 



Consuegra 



pwi Libras, 



£3 Soure 



r~n Ocana 



f-n Betera 
Valencia 



Alconetar 



OlocauV till 



Toledo 



Mora 



[H Alcazar de 
San Juan 



irrente ia r 



Silla 
till Sueca 



Belver CS 



tH Alhambra 



Montanchez tl 



Calatrava tH 
la Vieja 



Lisbon Utl Coruche 



Enguera 



H Montiefl 



Almada 



Socovos 



.Palmela 



Hornachos t3 
__ __ Usagre 



IM Cieza 
K3 Ricote 



Evora 



Setubal 



Moura 



Santiago 
de Cacem 



Llerena 



Setefilla fm 



Aljustrel [K! Serpa 
Mertola tD \ 



tH Martos 



Alcaudete 



Marachique 
Albufeira P-n 



Seville { 



Benameji 



Osuna tU 



Granada 



IH1 Cacela 



Moron M 
Cote 



'Alcala de los Gazules 



Medina Sidonia 



Ceuta 



Tangiei 1 



reference points were Ibn Rushd (also 
known as Averroes), who died in 1198 and 
Ibn Arabi (d. 1240), who wrote many mysti- 
cal works that influenced succeeding gener- 
ations. The great Jewish thinker Moses 
Maimonides (d. 1204) also worked in this 
most intellectually invigorating and cultur- 
ally resplendent milieu. 



The court of the lions in the 
Alhambra palace in Granada. 
The kingdom of Granada , the 
last Islamic outpost in Western 
Europe, held out for 250 years in 
the face of the Christian 
Reconquista. Despite the 
external pressures, under the 
Nasrid dynasty it remained a 
sophisticated and tolerant center 
where Islamic and Western 
cultures were blended in a 
brilliant, creative synthesis. 



The Christian 
Reconquest 


Date of reconquest 




E 


1080 

1130 






1210 






1250 






1275 


m 


Muslim 

domination 


t 


Archdiocese 


Military orders 


m 


Hospital 


ft£ 


Santiago 


H 


Caltrava 


fed 


Ale antra 


a 


Avis 


H 


Cristo 


n 


Montesa 



69 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Subsaharan Africa — East 



The southernmost outpost of 
Dar al-Islam until modern times, 
Kilwa had a population of about 
10,000 in 1505, when the 
Portuguese took the island by 
storm. The first Muslim 
occupants were mariners and 
merchants from the Persian Gulf 
who settled around AD 800. 



From the time of the ancient pharaohs the 
Upper Nile regions of East Africa had belonged 
to the same cultural universe as Egypt. Ethiopia 
was Christianized by Coptic missionaries from 
the fourth century, and according to the earliest 
Islamic sources, the Christian Negus gave 
refuge to a group of persecuted Muslims from 
Mecca even before the Hijra. The Arab con- 
querors of Egypt reached Aswan in 641 and for 
centuries continued to move southward, giving 



Plan of the Great Mosque at Kilwa 




0 



15 m 



0 



50 ft 




the Upper Nile region its predominantly Arabic 
character. The Funj sultanate, which main- 
tained a monopoly on the gold trade that last- 
ed until about 1700, was created by herders 
moving downstream along the Blue Nile. It 
consolidated the Arabic influence by attracting 
legal scholars and holy men (known locally as 
faqis ) from Egypt, the Maghreb, and Arabia. 

The Arab character of East African Islam 
was reinforced by the proximity of the coastal 
regions to the Hejaz and Yemen. From an early 
period Somali cattle-breeders acquired the most 



prestigious of all Islamic lineages in the form of 
Quraishi pedigrees, a trend that would emerge 
among other religious and tribal leaders. While 
Arabic and — in some cases — Persian brought by 
mariners retained their prestige as the language 
of “True Islam,” vernacular languages devel- 
oped rich oral literatures that would eventually 
acquire written form. The first Swahili text 
dates from 1652. The Swahili culture that dom- 
inates the thousand-mile coastal strip from 
Mogadishu to Kilwa is the fruit of many cen- 
turies of interaction between the ideas brought 
by Arab-Persian merchants, traders, and set- 
tlers, and the indigenous peoples of the eastern 
seaboard with whom they intermarried. 

After Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape 
of Good Hope in 1498 the Portuguese sys- 
tematically destroyed the prosperous 
Swahili cities that had sprung up along 
the coast. In 1505 Kilwa was captured and 
Mombasa was sacked. By 1530 the 
Portuguese controlled the entire coast 
from their fortresses on Pemba, Zanzibar, 
and other islands. In the 1650s, however, 
the Omanis who were Ibadi Muslims 
expelled them from Muscat, restoring the 
eastern part of the Indian Ocean to Muslim 
rule. The Omanis built up the trade in cloth, 
ivory, and slaves between East Africa and 
India. In the nineteenth century, under the sul- 
tan Sayyid Said bin Sultan (1804-56), Muscat 
and Zanzibar were briefly united under a sin- 
gle ruler, opening the way to settlement by 
new waves of Muslim immigrants from South 
Arabia. Much of Zanzibar was turned over to 
the commercial production of cloves and other 
spices, using slave-plantation methods similar 
to those employed in the United States. After 
the division of the empire between the sons of 
Sultan Said, Zanzibar came under increasing 



70 




SUBSAHARAN AFRICA — EAST 



Mediterranean 
Sea 
Alexandria 9 

* Cairo 

MAMLUK 

EMPIRE 

As. 



Libyan 
Desert 

Tropic of Cancer 



» Qusayr 



-20^ 



V, 

Aswan • 

gP 

FariS * .Md». .Mecca 

Nubian Desert 



Muscat 



A r a b i 



• Suakin 



Old Dongola • ALWA — Berber 



<> 



A 



* 



i? 



• Soba 



DARFUR ^ 



FUNJ 



Sennar 
ctj * w 

§ k 



• Dahlak 

• Dibarwa 

• Axum 



YEMEN 

* Mocha 

• Aden 






* Shihr 



• Saylai 






^ • Lalibela 

^ AGAU ETHIOPIA adal , Berbera 
Debre Libanos • • Debre Birhan 
Bernra • 



: Socotra 

• Ras Xaafuun 



SOMALI 




INDIAN 

OCEAN 




300 km 



300 miles 



» Vohemar 



MWENEMUTAPA 

Khami • » ^ rea L l IS^ofala 

_ _ , Zimbabwe 

TORWA 

Mapungubwe # Manekweni # • Chibuene 

: of Ca prico-m ) ^'fopopo 



East African Slave Trade 


to 1500 




n 


Slave trading states 


□ 


Approximate area 
supplying slaves 


— 


Slave routes 


■ 


Other kingdoms and states 



030^ 



pressure to abolish the slave trade by 
the British, who used their navy to 
enforce the antislave trade laws and 
to pursue their own commercial 
interests. After becoming a British 
protectorate, Zanzibar played host 
to a new wave of immigrants from 
British India. Many of these 
migrants were Muslims from minor- 
ity communities including Momens, 
Ithnashari Khojas, and Ismailis. 




The entrance to a private house in Stone 
Town, Zanzibar. The decorated portals 
carved from local hardwoods or trees 
imported from the mainland symbolized the 
social status of the house's owner. The walls 
are made from coral rag and need constant 
maintenance to prevent destruction by 
torrential monsoon rains. 



71 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Subsaharan Africa — West 




Detail from a fourteenth -century 
Catalan map showing a king 
enthroned, with his royal regalia. 
The portrait may be of Mansa 
Musa of Mali, whose wealth 
made a great impression on his 
contemporaries when he traveled 
to Mecca in 1324—25. 



The expansion of Islam in West Africa was 
largely peaceful. The introduction of camels for 
transportation into the Sahara sometime before 
AD 600 had established a growing network of 
caravan routes between the Maghreb and the 
Sahil (shore), the vast belt of grassy steppelands 
that lies between the Sahara and the tropical 
forests of Guinea. The principal export from the 
south was gold front Bambuko on the Senegal 

River, which was 
for centuries the 
principal source 
of gold for the 
Maghreb, West 
Asia, and Europe. 
Gold — along 
with slaves, hides, 
and ivory — was 
exchanged for 
copper, silver, 
handcrafted arti- 
cles, dried fruits, 
and cloth. More 
significant than 
the trade, how- 
ever, was the dif- 
fusion of ideas. 
Islam was brought south by merchants, teachers, 
and Sufi mystics the French had named 
Marabouts Arabic Murabits. The latter were 
often members of saintly families who acted as 
hereditary arbiters among rural tribesfolk. 

In the eleventh century Murabits from the 
Lamtuna Berber group established a center in 
Mauretania for the propagation of Islam, from 
where they launched a jihad against the kings of 
Ghana, rulers of the largest and wealthiest of 
the West African states. The reforming zeal of 
the Murabits (known as Almoravids in Spanish) 
carried them northward to Iberia, where they 



reunited the petty principalities of al-Andalus 
to ward off the threat of the Christian recon- 
quest. There were some forcible conversions of 
Africans south of the Sahara, but these were 
mostly rare. The earliest converts were usually 
the royal families that had always relied on reli- 
gious prestige to extract taxes or military serv- 
ice from subordinate clans and communities. As 
Muslim merchants settled in Sahil cities (most 
of which had their own Muslim quarters by the 
late tenth century) the royals would seek to ben- 
efit from the cultural prestige they carried by 
adopting Islam as the court religion. 

For the most part local kingdoms continued 
to form and re-form under different tribal 
dynasties, with Islamic rituals and practice 
intermingling with tribal customs. With each 
new state the capital would become a center of 
wealth and Islamic learning, as rulers sought 
prestige by patronizing religious scholarship. 
The most spectacular cultural center was the 
Tuareg city of Timbuktu on the Niger. The 
Tuaregs were a camel-borne elite who grew 
rich front the trans-Saharan trade, using slaves 
to exploit the salt mines and settling serfs 
front African tribes to cultivate the oases 
along their routes. 

The most celebrated Muslim ruler front 
Subsaharan Africa was Mansa Musa (1307-32), 
king of Mali. He made the pilgrimage to Mecca 
in 1324-25 in the grandest possible style, leav- 
ing an impression that would last for genera- 
tions. Unlike the Nilotic Sudan where the 
Arabic language took root, Islam was diffused 
in local vernaculars front a relatively early 
stage. From around 1700 (and possibly earlier) 
scholars and teachers developed a modified ver- 
sion of Arabic script to convey Islamic teach- 
ings in Fulfulde and Hausa, the leading lan- 
guages of the western Sahil. 



72 




SUBSAHARAN AFRICA— WEST 




• Gharnata 
(Grana|da) 



Tunis! 



Tlemcen 



^Marrakesh 



i'jilmasa 



haza 



Wadan 

(Ouadane) 



Ribat 



Chinguetti 



’admekka 



Awdaghust 



imbuktu 



bi Saleh 
Empire capital 



Koukya 



ropic of Cancer 



Akan goldfields 



Canary Islands 



Ghadames 



Azelik 



Sokoto 



Ghana and Mali Empires 

jj Ghana Empire, c. 1000 
Almoravid state, 1055 
Almoravid state, 1 1 00 
Mali Empire, c. 1350 
> Travels of Ibn Battuta, 1352 

Trade route 

Alluvial gold 



73 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Jihad States 



Mudbaked mosque at 
Djenne, Mali. Designed in 
the local vernacular style, 
the building fabric is 
constantly renewed from the 
material of which it is made. 



From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century 
a series of jihad movements occurred in West 
Africa that led to the creation of a number of 
Islamic states and transformed the presence of 
Islam in the region. Most of these jihads 
involved rebellions by nomadic tribesmen 
against nominally Islamic rulers who held to 
traditional African concepts of divine kingship, 
mixing rituals of pagan origin with symbols 




derived from Islam. The leadership of these 
movements usually came from the literate class 
of ulama — scholars, teachers, and students — 
who had studied with Sufi masters locally or 
had acquired their reformist ideas in Mecca and 
Medina. Their followers were Fulani cattle- 
herders moving south in search of pasture, who 
resented taxes imposed on them by the Hausa 
kings, joined by disgruntled peasants, runaway 
slaves, and other outcasts. Ibrahim Musa 
(Karamoko Alfa d. 1751), a Fulani torodbe 
(scholar), waged a struggle against the local 
rulers. This resulted in the creation of the state 
of Futa Jallon in the uplands of Senegambia. 
The jihad movement (which Ibrahim Musa’s 
descendants exploited to capture slaves for 
export and work in plantations) spread to Futa 
Toro in the Senegal River valley. Here torodbes 
formed an independent Islamic state, before 



merging with the local elites prior to the French 
conquest. The most famous of the West African 
jihad leaders was Uthman Dan Fodio 
(1754-1817) a mallam (religious scholar) from a 
well-established family of scholars in the inde- 
pendent Hausa kingdom of Gobir. After attack- 
ing the king for mixing Islamic and 
pagan practices, Dan Fodio fol- 
lowed the classical Muhammadan 
scenario of making the hijra 
beyond the borders of the king- 
dom, before waging jihad 
against the king and other 
Hausa rulers in 
the name of 
a purified 



io°< 




HASSAN 



Argvin L 



Ouadane 

Chinguetti 



MASINA 

1810 





74 



JIHAD STATES 




unis 



rranean Sea 



Tunis 



Alexandria 



^Medina 



• Aswan 



• Dongola 



Suakin 



Massawa 



Hodeida 



HAUSA 

STATES 



Axum 



DARFUR 



Zabid 



iondar 



AWSA 



Kukuwa 



Wara 



Ngarzagmu 



Kano 



ETHIOPIA 1 



DAHOM1 



BENIN 



■ Benin 



■ Old Calabar 



OROMO 



Bohney 



Porto Novo 



Islam. His preaching conveyed a powerful mes- 
sage of social justice in the classic manner of 
Muhammad, mixing theological attacks on 
idolatry with denunciations of illegal taxes, 
sequestration of property, compulsory military 
service, and the enslavement of Muslims. By 
1808 the movement had overthrown most of the 
Hausa kingdoms; in the next two decades it 



expanded to include most of what is now 
northern Nigeria and the northern Camer- 
oons. In 1817 Dan Fodio retired to a life of 
reading, writing, and contemplation, leaving 
the empire to his son Muhammad Belo, who 
became the Sultan of Sokoto — the most power- 
ful Muslim emirate in what eventually became 
the British colony of Nigeria. 



Jihad States c. 1800 

] Extent of Islam, c. 1800 

• Center of Islamic learning 

D European trading post, 

1600-1800 

■ Arab trading post or city 

] States established by jihad 
with date 

SAN Major tribe 



ALGIERS 



BABWA 



■ Mogadishu 
Baraawe 

Equator 



75 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



The Indian Ocean to 1499 



Before the advent of Islam the Indian Ocean 
was part of an overlapping and interconnect- 
ed local, regional, and transcontinental net- 
work of trade routes stretching between 
China, Southeast Asia, East Africa, and the 
Mediterranean. 

The Periplus (Circuit) of the Erythrean 
Sea, a Greek-language merchant-mariner’s 
guide of the first century, describes two mar- 
itime trade routes commencing from ports on 
the Red Sea (i.e., Myus Hormus, Leuke 
Rome, and Berenike). These connected mer- 
chants of the classical Greco-Roman world 
engaged in the trade of items such as textiles, 
copper, spices, and slaves to their partners on 
the western Indian Ocean littoral. One route 
went down through the Red Sea to southern 
Arabia by Muza (Mocha) and Dioscurides 

Dhow is a generic term for a variety of 
lateen-rigged craft that plied the Indian 
Ocean. Designed for seasonal 
monsoons, the dhows stayed close to the 
coast, planning their runs to coincide 
with the monsoon cycles. 



(Socotra), to northeast Africa (Adulis and 
Opone in Axum/Ethiopia), and down the 
coast of East Africa by way of Menouthias 
near Pemba as far as Rhapta (whose site is yet 
to be discovered, but may be Bagamoyo on the 
coast of modern Tanzania). The other route 





76 



THE INDIAN OCEAN TO 1499 



veered toward India’s northwestern shores by 
Barygaza (Broach) and then south to Muziris 
Cranganore and Komar (Cape Comorin). 

The movements of people and goods were 
regulated by the Indian Ocean’s predictable 
monsoon cycle. The benign northeast or win- 
ter monsoon lasts approximately half the year 
(from November to March). Before the days of 



powered navigation, the northeast monsoon 
allowed the large lateen-rigged sails of the 
Arabian, Persian, and Indian dhows to sail 
such routes as Aden to Cochin with the sails 
trimmed to keep the ship pointing as closely as 
possible into the direction of the wind. They 
traded up the Malabar coast of India on the 
opposite tack before returning with their sails 







Ahmedabad 
-Cambay 
# Broach 
) • Surat 



Chittagong 



Hanoi 



Ann am 

'K. 



Burma 



Champa 



Khmer 



^Quillon 



Comorii 



Maidive 

Islands 



Trade routes to 1500 

— >- Trade routes 
| | Under Islamic control 



77 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



full and their yard arms swinging free before 
the wind. The southwest monsoon, which 
brings rain to western India and generates 
more turbulent weather, was best avoided. 

By the seventh century, the trading worlds 
described in The Periplus had long disap- 
peared. Western Indian Ocean ports and 



trade routes were caught up in increasing 
rivalry between the Byzantine and Sasanian 
(Persian) Empires. The Byzantines supported 
Ethiopian raids on South Arabia from ports 
on the Red Sea, while the Persians secured 
their control over the Persian Gulf (Bahrain) 
and southern Arabia at Aden, Suhar, and 



Saljuq ruler on his throne. 
Their position at the western 
end of the Silk Road enabled the 
Saljuq sultans to indulge their 
taste for luxuries, such as the 
finest Chinese silks and jewels, 
from Central Asia. 
Manuscript, 13th century. 




78 



THE INDIAN OCEAN TO 1499 



Daba. In between the two empires were the 
Quraish, who would become the first 
Muslims engaged in land-based trade at their 
sanctuary at Mecca. 

The early trajectory of Muslim conquest 
and expansion was away from the Indian 
Ocean and toward the Mediterranean. But 
successive Muslim dynasties made efforts to 
gain political and economic control over the 
Indian Ocean. The Umayyad conquest and 
occupation of Daybul in Sind in 712 was a 
first step in this direction. Subsequently, the 
Abbasids’ founding of their capital Baghdad 
in 762 near the Tigris, with its access via 
Basra to the Persian Gulf, provided further 
impetus to Muslim maritime trade and settle- 
ment from the shores of East Africa to south- 
ern China. Mariners’ reports collected in the 
Akhbar al-Sin Wal-Hind (c. 850) provide a 
glimpse into what a typical round-trip mer- 
cantile sea voyage from Siraf (south of 
Shiraz) to Canton would have been like in 
Abbasid times. Contemporary maritime 
activity in the southwestern Indian Ocean, 
from Arabia to East Africa (Bilad al-Zanj), is 
attested to in the Muruj al-Dbahab of al- 
Masudi (d. 928). 

In 969, the Fatimids conquered Egpyt and 
founded Cairo, posing a serious political and 
commercial challenge to the Abbasids. The 
Fatimids succeeded in diverting trade in the 
western Indian Ocean from Baghdad and the 
Persian Gulf to Fustat and the Red Sea. The 
commercial importance of Egypt and the Red 
Sea trade route to the western Indian Ocean 
was maintained by the Fatimids’ successors, 
the Ayyubids and Mamluks. Documents from 
the Cairo Geniza collection offer evidence of 
the complex network of Fustat-based traders, 
stretching between North Africa and India via 
the western Indian Ocean, operating between 
the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. 



Political and economic control over Indian 
Ocean trade routes by Muslim dynasties based 
in the Middle East was complemented by the 
growth of Muslim communities, mercantile 
centers, and independent states around the lit- 
toral, many of which have complex and multi- 
stranded histories that have yet to be studied. 
The eastern African coast, and its Swahili- 
speaking peoples, had multiple connections to 
the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf, and 
India. Muslim settlements (mosques and bur- 
ial sites) at Shanga date to the latter half of 
the eighth century and there is evidence to 
support the presence of local Muslim dynas- 
ties and their control of island settlements on 
Pemba, Zanzibar, Mafia, and Kilwa between 
c. 1000 and 1150. Many of these communities 
were thriving when Ibn Battuta visited the 
region by way of Mogadishu in 1331. 

Ibn Battuta is also a source of information 
for the presence of Muslims along China’s 
southern coastline up to Quanzhou (Zaitun), 
which he reached in 1347. At Quanzhou, buri- 
als and a mosque (c. 1009) mark the presence 
of a Muslim community at the trading port. 
The histories of Muslim communities in 
Southeast Asia are also informed by 
transoceanic trade. By the fifteenth century, it 
was the entrepot of Malacca on the Malay 
coast that emerged as a major maritime cen- 
ter in the larger Muslim Indian Ocean trading 
network, eclipsing centers on Java and 
Sumatra. Malacca had a sizeable Muslim 
population that had strong connections to 
western Indian merchants and ports such as 
Cambay (Gujarat). Ironically, Ibn Majid, the 
mariner credited with piloting Vasco da Gama 
through the Indian Ocean in 1498, provides an 
unfavorable description of Malacca. The port 
fell to the Portuguese in 1511, marking the 
firm establishment of the first European mar- 
itime power in the Indian Ocean. 



79 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



The Indian Ocean 1500—1900 




M O G Ul 
# Cambay 1539 

1540-1615 

n,J il) « Xln,3n IS58 
Cl lU f E M P J R E 



Hooghly 

1537-1640 



BURMA 



Bay pp 
Bengal 



Syriam 



^fasulipatam 

1570-1605 



j^yutthaya 



J/B,1 ar/ ca «L 
^ (: annano r ^ 
1502 Cochin J 
Quiloin 
1512 Col 



S\ngaP ote 



tangallre 
palicut f510-l616 



Jaffna 1560 



Malacca 

1511-1641 



t Batticaloa 

1519-1638 

_ Sri Lanka 






The forts guarding the entrance 
to the harbor of Muscat were 
originally built by the 
Portuguese in the sixteenth 
century on the site of earlier 
strongholds. After surviving 
Ottoman attacks, the 
Portuguese garrisons 
surrendered to the Omani Imam 
Sultan bin Saif in 1650. 



Indian Ocean c. 1580 


■ 


Portuguese possession 
with date of acquisition 


• 


Portuguese factory 


• 


Portuguese town 


— 


Portuguese trade routes 



Vasco da Gama’s voyage around the Cape of 
Good Hope in 1498 was an epoch-making 
event, putting an end to the Muslim mono- 
poly of trade in the Indian Ocean and open- 
ing the way for the British and Dutch 
Empires in South Asia and the East Indies. 
The era of European imperialism began with 
merchant adventurers who established trad- 
ing posts in the southern seas, which became 
the bases for further expansion. The 
Portuguese were the pioneers, taking Kilwa 
and sacking Mombasa in 1505 before 
establishing bases in Zanzibar and Pemba. 

In 1509 they defeated a combined 
Egyptian-Indian fleet to take Goa on the 
Malabar coast. In 1515 they conquered 
Malacca and in the same year Hormuz 
on the Persian Gulf. Portuguese hegemony 
was soon replaced by that of the Dutch, 
whom the Portuguese had tried to exclude 
from the lucrative pepper and spice trade. 



° c £ A N 




N 

X 


carps • 

1519 


4 - - 


0 


500 km 

i 






Bantam J 

1512-96 


0 


500 miles 


1 





80 



THE INDIAN OCEAN 1500-1900 




4 T/q 






Delhi ; 

Agra. 

1602 



^ofAOen 



} r ab. 



'a n 



Ahmedabad 16]2 

’Swat 1618-83 

<^r^T n,55S 



li3 °~J664 Pl 



1640 Hooghly • 
Serampore o 

1616 

Pipli o 
1637 



BURMA 



l63 ?Hstl, 



,S '0 Go; 



£ A§igaloi 

uL ochm ° 

/^/QuiJon ® T 
^dn-J 



B^y of 
Bengal 
® Masulipatam 1605-1781 Nelh. 
„ 1611 English 

w , •& m f a g°n 
„ Madra sf Pulicat 1609 
9 1639 •Sadras /555 

-® oTranquebar 1616 
® Negapatam 1658 



Syriam 






Colombo 1 
^ Gall. 

1640 



Negapai 
Jaffna 1658 
Trincomali 
pm bo 1640 
Sri Lanka 

1644-1795/1815 







The Dutch defeated the Portuguese at 
Amboyna in 1605, taking Banda in 1621, 
Ceylon (Sarandib, now Sri Lanka) in 1640, 
and Malacca in 1641. Batavia (now Jakarta), 
which would become the capital of the 
Dutch East Indies, was founded in 1619. 

Although the process was a gradual one, 
the Portuguese intervention introduced 
changes in the patterns of trade and in the 
political economies of the Muslim states in 
the region. By the end of the seventeenth cen- 
tury England and Holland, two small coun- 
tries perched on the western periphery of 
Eurasia, had become (with France) the domi- 
nant forces in world trade. Cargoes of raw 
commodities — timber, grain, fish, and salt — 
replaced the traditional trade in luxury 
goods. The shift in cargoes heralded even 
more far-reaching changes, whereby the 
world would be divided between colonies 
producing raw materials and industrial and 




1601 fnjfe/lAtjeh j, JStmud! 

UI9-166B Por;.Baros* IMI <*> •ju r&s&fi&wk 

]663 Painan- S «* '‘fcjslR 

sr ’S3. 11,4 1 

1630-64 English 



| Dutch possessions 

| Portuguese possessions 
| Spanish possessions 

• British possessions 

© Danish possessions 

□ Factory 



81 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



As the British began to 
establish themselves in India, 
they imported their own 
architectural styles, as shown 
in a watercolor of a house 
built at Chapra in 1 796. 




commercial centers producing high-value 
goods and services. Viewed from the perspec- 
tive of the twenty-first century, Vasco da 
Gama’s voyage represents the beginnings of a 
process that culminates in “globalization.” 
Two technological factors drove these 
changes: better sails and gunpowder. Their 
position on the eastern shore of the Atlantic 
had encouraged the Portuguese to develop 
powerful naval vessels capable of riding the 
Atlantic storms and sailing closer to the 
wind than the lateen-rigged Arab dhows. 
The Portuguese ships were larger and stur- 
dier than their Arab and Persian counter- 
parts, and thus able to hold more cargo and 
engage in longer runs. The new route around 
southern Africa to the Indies bypassed the 
West Asian trade routes, bringing goods 
from South Asia and the Indies — spices, 
cloths, and other valuable commodities — 
directly to Lisbon, enriching the merchants 
there but cutting out the intermediate benefi- 
ciaries of the trade between Europe and Asia 




(these had included the Venetians and 



Genoese who plied the waters of the eastern 
Mediterranean as well as the Muslim 
traders who carried goods by land). The 
gunpowder revolution — like the revolu- 
tion in sailing techniques — was grad- 
ual, but reached equally far in its 
consequences. With the develop- 
ment of cannon, stone fortresses 
ceased to be impregnable, lend- 
ing the military advantage to 
well-organized central powers 
that could afford to make the 
costly investment in artillery 
and firearms. As military 
technology advanced, a shift 
took place in the balance of 
power between the tradi- 
tional warrior classes, for 
whom military prowess was vested 
in notions of tribal solidarity, honor, 
prestige, and courage (classic virtues of the 
nomadic conquerors), and economic powers 



82 




THE INDIAN OCEAN 1S00-1900 




Krasnoyai 



Urumchi 



Hami • 



'Kashgar 

Yarkand 






• Khotan 



VPutana 



Chittagong 



Yanaon 



Rangot 



Mysore] 



f Madras # 

1 Pondicherry Andaman Is. 1 
KarikaJ 



' ac cadive 



, Ceylon 
'(Sri Lanka) 



Colombo 



Nicobar Is. 



<$Singai 



with sophisticated administrative centers 
capable of keeping up with the latest military 
technology. Under European pressure the frag- 
mented Muslim states that followed in the 
wake of Arab caliphate and the Mongol inva- 
sions were consolidated into larger units dom- 
inated by the three great “gunpowder 
empires”: Ottoman Eurasia, Shiite Iran, and 
Mughal India. 



Indian Ocean I 800-1900 

European, U.S., and 
Japanese territories in Asia 



Spheres of influence, 
c. 1907 



British 


y//. 


British 


■ 


Allied to British rrm 1 1 


administration 




French 


1 1 


French 


y//, 


Russian 


□ 


Dutch 
Portuguese 
German 
United States 


m 

y//. 


German 

Japanese 


0 



Russian Empire, 
1855 

To Russia 
by 1900 
Occupied by 
Russia, 1900 



Treaty Port in China, 
with date of opening 



Major railway 



83 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Rise of the Ottomans to 1650 



The great period of Ottoman 
expansion occurred during the 
reign of Suleiman 1 “the 
Magnificent. ” The painting 
below depicts an Ottoman fleet 
attacking the French town of 
Toulon in 1545. 



The Ottoman Empire became the most far- 
reaching of all the Islamic states. It began its 
remarkable expansion as a frontier state con- 
ducting raids on Byzantine territories from 
Bithynia near the Sea of Marmara early in the 
thirteenth century. In 1242-43 the Mongols 
defeated the Saljuqs, making them vassals, 
and pushing increasing numbers of Turkish 
nomads into the peninsula in search of pas- 
turage and booty. The breakup of Saljuq 
power led to the creation of several petty 
states under loose Mongol overlordship. After 
taking Bursa, which they made their capital in 




1326, the Ottomans became players in the 
factional strife that beset the Byzantine 
Empire in its latter days. It was as auxiliaries 
to one of the contending parties that they 
first crossed the straits and occupied 
Byzantine territory in Europe. They occupied 
Greece, Macedonia, and Bulgaria, and finally 
established their control over the western 
Balkans by defeating the Serbs at the Battle of 
Kosovo in 1389. Successive campaigns involv- 
ing coalitions of Latin and Orthodox powers 




' SWISS 
CONFED. 



Venice 



Genoa 



PAPAL 



Corsica 



STATES 



Naples 



SARDINIA 



SICILY 



MALTA 



TUNIS 

1574 



holy roman 
Empire 



Tyrrebenian 

Sea 



- 30 ° 



* Wargl; 

1566 



Expansion of the Ottoman Empire 1328-1672 


■ 


Ottoman territory, 1328 


□ 


Ottoman territory, 1520 
(Selim 1) 


o 


Ottoman territory, 1355 


ZA 


Ottoman vassal from 1541 


□ 


Ottoman vassal from 1394 


■ 


Ottoman territory, 1566 
(Suleiman 1) 


□ 


Ottoman territory, 1402 
(prior to Mongol attack) 


■ 


Ottoman territory, 1660 


B 


Ottoman territory, 1481 
(Muhammed II) 


■ 


Ottoman territory, 1630-72 


Z2 


Ottoman vassal from 1475 


□ 


Ottoman vassal from 1664 



84 






RISE OF THE OTTOMANS TO 16S0 




'onets 



POLAND 



'^GA RY 



[OLD AVIA JED" 



lansylvaNI 



HUNGARY 1664 



Belgrade 



tie b\x°^ 



rVarna 



Sarajevo • 



BULGAR’ 



SERBIA 



Constant 



BOSNIA^ 

HERZEC 



Ankara 



Otrantt 



Aegean 

J>ea 



LlA cvA ^ soPOTa ^ 

.dM» . W" 



HAMI 1 

, 



Ionian 

Sea 



Euphrates 



Benghazi 



85 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



(including Naples, Venice, Hungary, 
Transylvania, Serbia, and Genoa) failed to 
stem the Ottoman advances into Europe. In 
1453 Constantinople fell to the forces of 
Mehmet the Conqueror, fueling Ottoman 
imperial ambitions and providing the basis 
for further expansion. In 1521 the Ottomans 
captured Belgrade from the Hungarians. By 
1529 they had reached the gates of Vienna, 
the Habsburg capital. By the time of the 
death of Suleiman the Magnificent in 1566 
they controlled a swath of European territory 
from the Crimea to southern Greece. 

Ottoman victories were even more spec- 
tacular in the lands of Islam. After defeating 
the Safavids at Chaldiran in 1514, the 
Ottomans annexed eastern Anatolia and 
northern Mesopotamia, enabling them to 
control the central Asian trade routes linking 
Tabriz and Bursa. In 1516 and 1517 they took 
over the Mamluk Empire in Syria and Egypt, 
giving them control of the holy places of the 
Hejaz. Building on the Greek seamanship 
acquired from their Byzantine predecessors, 
they contested the power of Venice in the 
eastern Mediterranean and challenged the 
dominance of Habsburg Spain in the western 
Mediterranean, taking Algiers (1529), Tunis 
(1534-35), Jerba (1560), and the strategic 
island of Malta, the last Crusader strong- 
hold, in 1565, as well as Cyprus in 1570. This 
string of naval victories finally provoked a 
successful counterattack. In 1571, the defeat 
of the Ottoman navy at the Battle of Lepanto 
by a Venetian-Habsburg coalition was cele- 
brated all over Europe as a triumph for 
Christendom. Although the Ottomans refur- 
bished their fleets and retook Tunis in 1574, a 
balance of power was achieved in the 
Mediterranean, confirming the frontiers that 
remained between the Muslim lands to the 
south and Christian lands to the north. 

Paradoxically the early Ottoman state was 
both militantly Islamic and strongly influ- 
enced by Greek culture, heir to the Saljuqs 



but also to practices and structures derived 
from the Roman-Byzantine Empire it 
replaced. Straddling the Christian Balkans 
and the western reaches of Dar al-Islam, it 
was a bridge between rival civilizations. Being 
close to Constantinople, which had long been 
the goal of Muslim conquest, the state ruled 
by the Osmanli family (from which the 
English spelling Ottoman derives) attracted 
many of the ghazis (holy warriors) seeking 
glory in the jihad against Christendom. In 
Anatolia these Turkish incomers and pas- 
toralists tended to be prejudiced against the 
Christian villagers, some of whom may have 
converted to avoid persecution. Among the 
incomers, however, there were also dervishes 
and members of Sufi brotherhoods from 
Inner Asia, such as Hajji Bektash (d. 1297). 
He preached versions of Islam that tended to 
merge Islamic beliefs, both Sunni and Shiite, 
with Christian beliefs and religious practices, 
facilitating the conversion of Greek and 
Armenian-speaking peoples. The Ottoman 
rulers assisted this process by excluding bish- 
ops and metropolitans from their sees, leav- 
ing the Christians without leaders, and by 
replacing the Orthodox infrastructure of hos- 
pitals, schools, orphanages, and monasteries 
with Islamic institutions staffed by Persian 
and Arab scholars. By the fifteenth century 
more than 90 percent of the Anatolian popu- 
lation had become Muslim, though substan- 
tial minorities of Christians and Jews 
remained in the cities. While the peasants 
were mostly converted, the nobility and civil 
servants of the old imperial system were inte- 
grated into the Ottoman armies and adminis- 
tration, giving the state a distinctly Byzantine 
character. Though a measure of religious 
autonomy was permitted through the millet 
system of self-governing minorities the 
Ottoman state was highly centralized. In 
other Muslim lands (including some of the 
Arab provinces that came under the looser 
forms of Ottoman dominion) the practice of 



86 



RISE OF THE OTTOMANS TO 16S0 



Islam in law and society was virtually 
self-regulating. The rulers appointed the 
qadis (judges) but in most other respects 
allowed the religious institutions such as 
the mosques and madrasas where the 
ularna were trained, the networks of 
Sufi lodges, and the guilds of artisans 
that were often connected to them, to 
flourish independently. By contrast with 
other Islamic regimes, the Ottomans 
dominated, controlled, and shaped the 
societies they governed. Though theo- 
retically subject to the Sharia, the sul- 
tans supplemented the divine law with 
firmans (decrees) regulating the status 
and duties (including dress codes) of all 
their subjects. They brought the ularna, 
the Sufi lodges, and the guilds of arti- 
sans under state control by dictating 
appointments, grading, and licenses. 
Society was divided into two classes: the 
rulers and the ruled, the principal dis- 
tinction being the right of the askeri 
(rulers) to exploit the wealth of the sub- 
jects through imposts and taxes. In the- 
ory all the land was the personal prop- 
erty of the sultan. The ruling elites were 
not confined to the ranks of pashas, 
beys, and ayan (Muslim notables) who 
dominated the empire in the provinces: 
they included patrician Greek families, 
ecclesiastical authorities, and prominent 
Jewish and Armenian bankers, as well 
as princely families from the Balkans. 



This portrait was intended to show Suleiman to his 
royal peers in Europe. The Ottoman sultans did 
not display their images to their own subjects until 
late in the nineteenth century. 




87 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



The Ottoman Empire 1650—1920 

At its peak in the sixteenth century the 
Ottoman system was highly efficient. But it 
also contained crucial weaknesses, notably the 
system of succession. In nomadic societies the 
absence of a fixed mode of succession has a 
sound Darwinian rationale: after a struggle 
with his peers, a chief will emerge who is fittest 
to lead his tribe. Transferred to the center of an 
imperial system, the result will be civil war. 



Abdul Hamid 11 was the last 
Ottoman sultan to wield 
effective power over the Empire. 
An absolute monarch and 
opponent of political 
liberalization, he nonetheless 
encouraged educational, legal, 
and economic reforms. 




After a series of fratricidal struggles, the 
Ottomans dealt with the problem of the suc- 
cession by confining the sultan’s male relatives 
to the palace’s Inner Courtyard or harem, 
thereby preventing future sultans from acquir- 
ing vital knowledge of military and secular 
affairs. From the seventeenth century the 
Ottoman sultans, who came to power as a 
result of “Byzantine” maneuvers and harem 
intrigues, lacked experience in the field and 
familiarity with the realities of politics. The 
power of the state and the army held up briefly 
under ruthless viziers such as Mehmed Koprulu 




Vienna ■ 



> SWISS 
CONFEI 



Venice 



Genoa 



Marseille 



SPAIN 



Corsica 



Rome 



Barcelona 



Sardinia 



Malta 



l, geria 
1830 French 



1 unisia 
1881 French 



Tyrrehenian 

Sea 



---- 



Ottoman Empire 1683-1914 


□ 


Territory lost by 1718 


■ 


Territory lost by 1812 


□ 


Territory lost by 1881 


□ 


Territory lost by 1914 


□ 


Ottoman Empire, 1914 


W 


Date granted autonomy 


1830 


Date of territory lost 



88 




THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 1650-1920 




HUNGARY 



TRANSYLVANIA 



Sevastop 01 . 



UNGAR' 

1699 



BANAT 

1718 



dobrOA 

1878 



WALLACHlA 
Bucharest • 

*- v Qaniibe _Jf r 

Bulgaria 



BOSNIA' Belgrade - 

.1878 

Sarajevo SERBIA 

1878 /\ 



Ionian 

Sea 



Benghazi 



of Cancer, 



89 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



(r. 1656-61), son of an Albanian Christian, and 
his son Ahmed (r. 1661-76), allowing further 
expansion north of the Crimea and (after 
Ahmed’s death) even a second siege of Vienna 
(1683). The process of decline, however, proved 
irreversible. The influx of Spanish silver from 
the Americas created a massive inflation prob- 
lem, undermining the commercial classes and 
the ability of government to pay for troops 
whose modern weaponry (muskets and gun- 
powder) required cash rather than booty. 
Provincial governors and local magnates gained 
power at the expense of the center, hiring pri- 
vate armies or raising taxes for themselves. The 
Janissaries, who had evolved into a privileged 
body within the state, became enmeshed in 
large-scale nepotism and misrule. Land conces- 
sions that should have nurtured agriculture 
degenerated into tax-farms, driving cultivators 
off the land, and creating gangs of rural ban- 
dits or urban migrants who drifted into cities 
already overcrowded and subject to famine, 
plague, and disorder. The millet system, which 
allowed the Christian and Jewish communities 
(and in Iraq the Shiite) a high degree of admin- 
istrative autonomy, undermined the legitimacy 
of the state by privileging Western traders and 
encouraging Greek and Balkan Christians to 
look toward the Empire’s enemies in Russia and 
Western Europe for inspiration and support. 

Internally decentralized, the Empire proved 
no match for the rising powers of Europe, 
whose military and economic systems were 
beginning to benefit from the revolution in sci- 
entific thought. During the last two decades of 
the seventeenth century, the European powers 
made significant advances at the Empire’s 
expense. Between 1684 and 1687 the Habs- 
burgs took most of Hungary north of the 
Danube and took Serbia in 1689. The 
Venetians seized Dalmatia and southern 
Greece (Morea). Poland invaded Podolia, and 
the Russians, under the newly modernized 
army of Peter the Great, took Azov in the 
Crimea. Although the Ottomans regained 



some of these territorial losses during the first 
half of the eighteenth century, in the longer 
term they were unable to stem the tide of 
Russian advance. In 1768 the Russians began a 
new campaign, occupying Moldavia and 
Wallachia (modern Romania) and the Crimea. 
Under the humiliating terms of the treaty of 
Kuchuk Kaynarca (1774) the Ottomans were 
obliged to allow Russia a foothold on the Black 
Sea, as well as freedom of navigation and com- 
merce, with access to the Mediterranean and 
to overland trade in the Empire’s Asian and 
European provinces. Although Moldavia and 
Wallachia remained technically under Otto- 
man suzerainty, the increased autonomy they 
were granted laid them open to Russian manip- 
ulation. Under Russian pressure a clause per- 
mitting the erection of a Russian church in 
Istanbul would be converted into a general 
right of Russian intervention on behalf of all 
the sultan’s Orthodox Christian subjects. 

The flow of ideas that followed in the wake 
of European victories would prove even more 
devastating than military defeats. Napoleon 
Bonaparte’s brief occupation of Egypt in 1798 
planted the seeds of modern scientific thought 
and revolutionary change in the Empire’s 
wealthiest (but most neglected) province. By 
defeating the neo-mamluk amirs who governed 
Egypt under Ottoman authority, Napoleon 
opened the way for penetration of Western 
ideas under the modernizing dynasty of 
Mehmed Ali (r. 1805-48), an Albanian officer 
who seized power in 1805, making himself an 
independent ruler in all but name. The colonial 
ambitions of a restored French monarchy led 
to the loss of Algeria from 1830 and the estab- 
lishment of a protectorate in Tunisia (1881). 
The winds of nationalism that tore through 
Europe in the wake of the French Revolution 
reached the Christian communities in the 
Balkans, starting with the Serbian revolt of 
1804-13 and the Greek war of independence 
(1821-29). They culminated in the treaty of 
San Stefano in 1878, by which the Ottomans 



90 



THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 1650-1920 



were forced to concede the independence of 
Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, and Montenegro. 
The final dismemberment of the Empire was 
only postponed because of rivalries between 
the European powers, with Britain and France 
propping up the “sick man of Europe” against 
Russia in the Crimea (1854-56) while Austria 
competed with Russia for ascendancy in the 
Balkans. In 1911, Italy invaded Tripoli and 
Cyrenaica, forcing the Ottomans to concede 
their suzerainty. In 1912, the combined Balkan 
powers (Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and 
Montenegro) took all the remaining Ottoman 
territories in Europe, except for a strip of land 
around Istanbul, before arguing among them- 
selves. In August 1914 the rivalries between the 
European powers in the Balkans erupted into a 



worldwide war, with the Ottoman Empire 
ranged alongside Austria and Germany 
against Britain, France, Italy, and Russia. The 
defeat of the Central Powers in 1918, the abdi- 
cation of the sultan in 1922, the abolition of 
the caliphate in 1924, as well as the exchange 
of populations between Turkey and Greece in 
1921 brought the Ottoman Empire to its end. 



The Dolmabahfe Palace, Istanbul. The classical Venetian- 
style facade of this palace, like others built for the 
Ottoman sultans in the nineteenth century, reveals 
change in cultural orientation, as they abandoned their 
former seclusion and displayed their power like 
European monarchs. 




91 





HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Iran 1500—2000 




Shah Suleiman and his courtiers 
with Western visitors, shown 
against a lyrical Europe an- style 
landscape. The Safavid rulers 
exported carpets and silk to 
Europe as well as ceramics 
designed by Chinese craftsmen 
for the Western markets. They 
broke with the traditional 
religious hostility toward 
figurative painting by claiming 
that the Imam Ali, revered by 
the Shiites, had been a painter as 
well as a calligrapher. 



The history of modern Iran began with the 
ruling Safavid dynasty (1501-1722) which 
established Twelver Shiism as the state religion. 
The dynasty’s founder Shaikh Safi al-Din 
(1252-1334) was a Sufi teacher and mujaddid 
(renovator) of Sunni allegiance who started a 
movement of reform among the tribes of eastern 

Anatolia and 



northwestern Iran. 
His descendant 
Shah Ismail 

(1487-1524) acti- 
vated popular 
eschatological 
expectations in the 
period of disorder 
following the col- 
lapse of the 
Timurid Empire by 
proclaiming himself the Hidden Imam, or 
expected Shiite messiah. Led by a fearsome band 
of warriors known as Qizilbashis (red heads) 
from their distinctive red turbans, the movement 
enabled Shah Ismail, who proclaimed himself 
king in Tabriz in 1501, to conquer most of Iran in 
the course of the next decade. 

Though the power of the Safavid state, based 
on the brilliant new capital built by Shah Abbas 
(1588-1629) in Isfahan, was limited, relying for its 
authority on a network of uymaqs or smaller 
chieftains and the traditional iqta system of tax- 
farming, the Safavid strategy of religious consoli- 
dation gave Iran the distinctive Shiite character it 
retains to this day Once the Qizilbashis had done 
their work Ismail’s messianic claims were deem- 
phasized, and Shiite scholars were imported from 
Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, and al-Hasa to promote the 
“official” version of Twelver Shiism, according to 
which the return of the Imam/Messiah is indefi- 
nitely deferred. Sunnism was suppressed, the 



tombs of Sufi saints desecrated, and khanaqas 
(hostelries) given over to Shiite youth. Jews and 
Zoroastrians were subjected to forcible conver- 
sion. The pilgrimage to Mecca was discouraged in 
favor of ziyaras (visits) to the lavishly-endowed 
shrines of the Shiite imans. In the eighteenth cen- 
tury, following the disintegration of the Safavid 
Empire, Iran endured a period of anarchy with 
Ottomans and Russians controlling the north, and 
Afghans, Afshars, Zand, and Qajar tribal chiefs 
vying for power in the south. Though Nadir Shah, 
an Afshar chieftain who proclaimed himself Shah 
in 1736, curbed the power of the Shiite ulania, the 
turbulence of the eighteenth century permitted the 
ulama to obtain a higher degree of institutional 
autonomy than their Sunni counterparts. 

Under the Qajar dynasty (1779-1925) the pow- 
ers of the Shiite ulama were enhanced by zakat 
and khums (religious taxes), which were paid to 
them directly, while their custodianship over 
shrines and waqfs (charitable trusts) gave them 
access to rents from land and housing. The loca- 
tion of two of the most important shrines at 
Karbala and Najaf in Iraq, in Ottoman-controlled 
territory, gave them a power base outside the 
domain of the state. The mourning ceremonies 
commemorating the martyrdom of the Imam 
Hussein at Karbala and the associated taziya (pas- 
sion plays) became characteristic features of pop- 
ular religiosity, making Shiism a component ele- 
ment in Iranian national identity 

As pressures from Russia and Britain began to 
impinge on Iran in the nineteenth century, the 
ulama came to the forefront of nationalist resist- 
ance. In 1873 they forced the Shah to cancel far- 
reaching economic and financial concessions 
made to a British citizen, Baron de Reuter, and in 
the 1890s they led a national boycott against a 
tobacco monopoly granted to another Briton, 
Major Talbot. The political momentum engen- 



92 



IRAN 1 S 00— 2000 



dered by the tobacco agitation culminated in the 
Constitutional Revolution of 1906, when a coali- 
tion of liberal ulama, merchants, and members of 
the Westernized intelligentsia forced the Shah to 
convene a national assembly and to submit to a 
form of parliamentary government. A brief period 
of constitutional rule, during which tensions 
between conservative ulama and the liberals came 
to the surface, was brought to an end by the 
Russians in 1911, when they intervened to restore 
the Shah’s autocracy 

In 1925 Reza Khan Pahlavi, an officer in the 
Cossack Brigade, came to power after a period of 
instability following the Russian Revolution. Reza 
Shah instituted a radical modernizing regime that 
sought to break the power of tribal leaders and to 
curb the autonomy of the ulama by introducing 
secular education and government supervision of 
religious schools. Secular courts were established 
depriving the ulama of their legal monopoly, 
which included the lucrative business of registering 
land transactions. During the Second World War 
Britain and Russia, who needed a compliant 
Iranian government to facilitate the passage of 
war material to the eastern front, forced Reza 
Shah to resign and replaced him with his son, the 
young Muhammad Reza. 

After the Second World War oil, first discov- 
ered in 1908 and leased to the British under gener- 
ous concessions, became a bone of contention 
when the nationalist Prime Minister, Muhammad 
Mosaddeq, attempted to nationalize the Anglo- 
Iranian Oil Company In the crisis engendered by 
a boycott of Iranian oil by Western oil companies, 
the CIA intervened to help the army restore the 
autocratic Pahlavi regime. 

The collapse of the regime in 1979 and the 
ensuing Islamic revolution were the result of a 
complex combination of economic, cultural, and 
political factors. Far from benefiting small tenants 
and landless peasants, the Shah’s ambitious land 
reforms in the 1960s favored large-scale enterpris- 



es and agribusiness (in which the ruling family had 
interests), while alienating the ulama, many of 
whom were themselves wealthy landowners or 
controlled extensive waqfs in land. The sudden 
increase in oil prices after 1973 increased wealth in 
the small modernized sector of the economy, while 
adversely affecting small businesses in the bazaari 
community, which had close links to the ulama. 
The corruption of the Pahlavi family and ruthless 
repression by SAVAK, the secret police, alienated 
the educated middle classes, and especially the 
younger generation of students, who had come 
under the influence of Marxism and the leftist ver- 
sions of Islamic ideology promoted by Dr Ali 
Shariati and Jalal Al-e-Ahmed, author of a highly 
influential tract entitled Westoxification. Poor 
rural migrants to the cities provided the tinder for 
revolution. 

Under a deal reached between the Shah and 
Saddam Hussein, Iraq expelled the dissident cleric 
Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini from the Shiite cen- 
ter of Najaf, where his lectures calling for a 
restored Islamic government under ulama supervi- 
sion found a receptive audience among ulama and 
students. From his place of exile in a Paris suburb 
Khomeini had access to the international media, 
while taped copies of his fatwas and sermons 
denouncing the Shah were smuggled into Iran. 
Early in 1979 a series of massive demonstrations, 
timed to coincide with the ritual of Ashura (the 
Day of Mourning for the Imam Hussein), forced 
the Shah into exile, bringing Khomeini home to a 
tumultuous reception. For ten years, until his 
death in 1989, he ruled the Islamic republic as the 
supreme religious leader. Although the Ayatollah 
Khamenei, Khomeini’s successor as the supreme 
religious authority, lacks Khomeini’s charisma, the 
right of the Guardianship Council which he con- 
trols to vet candidates for the parliament has effec- 
tively curbed its power to introduce changes that 
the religious establishment regards as being con- 
trary to its interests. 



93 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Central Asia to 1700 




The Shah mosque ( now Imam 
mosque ) in Isfahan, with the 
names of God and Muhammad 
written in bold geometric 
characters on the minaret. Built 
between 1612 and 1630, its 
spectacular blue-tiled decoration 
epitomizes the style and 
splendor of Shah Abbas. 



The history of inner Asia, like that of the Fertile 
Crescent where Islam originated, was dominated 
by the relationship between nomadic pastoralists 
and settled peoples. In the vast semiarid steppe- 
lands to the north and east of the Black and 
Caspian Seas lived peoples whose livelihoods 
depended mainly on cattle, horses, goats, sheep, 
camels, and yaks. They were organized into patri- 
archal kinship groups based on families, clans, 
and confederations or hordes, the greatest of 
which was that organized under the leadership of 
Ghenghis Khan and his successors. Under 
the leadership of Ghenghis Khan’s son Batu 
(r. 1227-55) the Golden Horde of Mongol- 
Turkish people (who became known as Tatars in 
Russia) established its base from two sarays 
(palace headquarters) on the Volga River. From 
here they conquered the Ukraine, southern 
Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Russia, creating a 
vast empire of which the ruler in Moscow was the 
principal tributary Leading Tatar families became 
Muslims from the mid-thirteenth century after 
contact with the sedentary peoples of Iran, 
Khwarzm, and Transoxiana. Brought by the mer- 
chants and Sufi dervishes who traveled along the 
Silk Road, Islam in inner Asia acquired a mystical, 
pluralistic character resulting from its encounters 
with Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Nestorian 
Christianity, and older traditions of shamanism. 

The conversion to Islam by Tarmarshirin 
(r. 1326-34), the ruler of the lands in Transoxiana 
bequeathed by Ghenghis Khan to his second son 
Chagatai, caused a split in his clan. This was clev- 
erly exploited by Timur Lenk, a member respect- 
ed by the impoverished clan of Turkomans. 
Though lame from birth Timur (r. 1370-1405), 
known as Tamerlane in the West, was a brilliant 
political strategist and military commander. By 
uniting Transoxiana and Iran (previously ruled by 
the Ilkhans, descendents of Hulegu) he regenerat- 



ed Turkish-Mongolian power in Central Asia, 
creating an empire that would stretch, at its 
height, from western India (including Delhi) to 
the shores of the Black Sea. After defeating the 
Ottomans at Ankara in 1402, where he captured 
the sultan, Bayazid I (r. 1389-1402), he became 
well known in Europe. The disruption of 
Ottoman power in Anatolia relieved the pressure 
on Constantinople (which survived for another 
half century) and reopened the trade routes to 
China, while his defeat of the Golden Horde 
assisted the rise of Christian Russia. 




94 





CENTRAL ASIA TO 1700 



Under Timur, his successor Ulugh Beg 
(r. 1404-49), and the Uzbek Shaybanids 
(1500-c. 1700) who inherited Timurid power in 
inner Asia, Herat, Samarkand, and Bukhara 
were transformed into world-class cities. They 
were embellished by the plunder and legions of 
skilled craftsmen and artisans Timur and his 
successors had imported from Persia, India, 
Iraq, and Syria. Though utterly ruthless and 
cruel (before taking Delhi, he had thousands of 
male prisoners executed so they would not be 
able to change sides) Timur was far from being 
an ignorant barbarian. He mastered Persian, 
and surrounded himself with some of the most 



distinguished scholars, artists, historians, and 
poets of his time, setting the stamp of “royal” 
Islamic high culture that would be imitated 
with rather more refinement by his successors. 
He was broad-minded on religious matters. 
Though a Sunni Muslim who launched his con- 
quests in the name of the Sharia under the pre- 
text that his enemies were apostates and trai- 
tors to Islam, he gave his protection to the 
Shiites. Shaikks (Sufi pirs) were his chief spiri- 
tual advisors. The Naqshbandi Sufi order, 
named after Baha al-Din Naqshband (d. 1389), 
who is buried near Bukhara, put down deep 
roots in inner Asia during this period. 




. Urgench 



Bukhara 



Isfahan 

1387 



• Kandahar 



Ganges 



The Dominions of Timur 


m 


Timur Empire 


□ 


Ottoman Empire 


■ 


Empire of the Great Khan 


□ 


Sultanate of Delhi 


□ 


Khanate of the Golden Horde 


■ 


Mamluk Sultanate 


■ 


Chagatai Khanate 




Major attacks and campaigns 



95 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



India 711-1971 



Islam first appeared in the South Asia subconti- 
nent with the Arab invasion of Sind (711-713). In 
the tenth century Fatimid dais (missionaries) 
from Cairo converted local rulers in Multan to 
Ismailism. However, these were replaced by Sunni 
governors appointed by the Ghurids in the after- 
math of the conquest of the Punjab by Mahmud 
of Ghazna, who sacked Lahore and devastated 
northern India in 1030. The systematic conquest 
of the subcontinent began with the Ghurids, who 
occupied Multan, Lahore, and Delhi (1175-92) 
before one of their generals, Qutb al-Din Aybeg, 
established the first of several independent sul- 
tanates in Delhi. These endured from 1206 to 
1526 under a succession of different dynasties. 
The Delhi sultanates help to establish the distinc- 
tive character of Indian Islam, a legacy carried by 
the Timurid Mughal Empire founded by Timur’s 
grandson Babur in 1526. This lasted more than 
three centuries until its dissolution by the British 
after the “Mutiny” or Great Rebellion in 1858. 
The Mughal Empire absorbed a number of inde- 
pendent Muslim dynasties that had been estab- 
lished in Bengal (1356-1576), Kashmir 
(1346-1589), Gujerat (1407-1572), and the 
Deccan (1347-1601). At the Empire’s greatest 
extent under Aurungzeb (r. 1658-1707) the 
emperor’s name was read from the pulpits of 
mosques as far apart as Kabul and Mysore. 

Some of the early Muslim rulers were fired 
with iconoclastic zeal against “idolators” and 
destroyed Hindu temples, replacing them with 
large mosques intended to symbolize Islamic 
domination. The Tughluq dynasty (1320-1413), 
however, initiated a pattern of tolerance that 
would help to establish a pluralistic version of 
Islam in India that contrasted with the more rigid 
and austere varieties of earlier times. To counter 
the political influence of well-established Muslim 
families, the dynasty’s founder Muhammad 
Tughluq (r. 1325-51) appointed non-Muslims to 
military and government offices, took part in 
local festivals, and allowed the construction of 



temples. While there was an initial period of 
Muslim immigration into India from Afghanistan 
and Central Asia after the conquests, the process 
of conversion and Islamization was slow and rel- 
atively limited. It is doubtful if more than 20 or 25 
percent of the Indian population became Muslim, 
with the Muslim populations concentrated in the 
Indus Valley, the northwestern frontier region, 
and Bengal. While the ruling classes were the 
descendants of warriors from Afghanistan, Iran, 
and inner Asia, most of the converts were from 
the lower Hindu castes or tribal and rural peoples 
whose lives were improved by joining the religious 
community of the rulers. The fullest diversity of 
Islamic faith, practice, and tradition came to be 
reflected among Indian Muslims, Sunni, Shiite, 
and Sufi, with a vast number of variations. The 
pluralistic character of Indian Islam is reflected in 
its magnificent architectural heritage where 
motifs drawn from Islamic and Hindu vernacu- 
lars were blended into a new, creative synthesis. 
Muslim devotional literature, including poetry, 
exists in a large number of Indian languages in 
addition to Arabic and Persian, the languages 
taught in the institutions of higher learning along 
with law, theology, and mysticism. 

While the ruling dynasties reflected an urban 
pattern of Muslim life, which had much in com- 
mon with the cosmopolitan culture of other 
Muslim regions such as Iran and Central Asia, 
rural Muslim populations retained a strong ver- 
nacular heritage, with local Hindu rituals and 
customs often mixed with Islamic beliefs and 
practices. Sufi teachers and religious orders played 
a particularly important role in the spread of 
Islam in South Asia. Among the most important 
tariqas were the Suhrawardiyya and the Chistiyya. 
Though organized hierarchically in a way that fit- 
ted the character of Indian society, the social roles 
of the tariqas differed greatly. Whereas the 
Suhrawardis maintained close relations with the 
Delhi sultans, benefiting from endowments and 
gifts of land that gave their leaders the status of 



96 



INDIA 711-1971 







Banu 



■ Ghazni 
Kurram 
Pass 



Brahmaputra 

o 

Nagarkot and Kangra 
khJawalamukhi A 1 . o 



Multan 



igadvara 



Pushkar 



jmer 



Canderi 



Dharmanatha 



° Khajuraho 



o Arbuda 
Ahmadabad 



Sanchi 



ttagong 



o Khambhat 



Mandu 



Baruch 



Mouths of 



a Pti o Burhanpur 



O Ratnagiri 

Bhubaneswar 
o Konarak 



Somnath 



Gulf of 
Cambay 



Daulatabad 



1 ndravaU 



Bidar 

Gulbarga o / 
o® Bijapur / 



Golconda 



O Vijayanagar 



A*. Penney 



CHOLAS 



O Chandragiri 

O Kanchipuram 
O Mamallapuram 



Cauve > 



O Chidambaram 



Kumb; 



nam 



Tanjore o 



Madurai 



P ANDY AS 
Korkai o 



Gulf of 

Mannar o Anuradhapura 



►nnaruva 



Muslim India 

Major religious sites, c. 1100-1400 
® Buddhist shrine 

® Hindu shrine 

® Muslim shrine 



o Lhasa 



y R. Brahmaputra 

y 

O Kathmandu 

w Tirhut 



R. limh"'--' 



Man« Bl har°°,! andUa 
Nalanda O Gaur 

Bodh Gaya 



Sylhet 

o 

r Sonargaon 



o 


Chola state at its maximum 
extent, c. 1100 


o 


Eastern border of Ghaznavid 
Emirate, c. 1150 


o 


Empire of Muhammad of 
Ghur, c. 1206 


Expansion of the Delhi Sultanate 


■ 


Under Qutb al-Din Aybeg, 
1206-10 


□ 


Under Itutmish, 1210-36 


□ 


Under Ala-al-Din Khalji, 
1296-1316 

Under Muhammad ibn 
Tughluk, 1325-51 


1 — 1 


-► 


Timur's invasion, 1398-99 


O 


Vijayanagar at its maximum 
extent, c. 1485 



97 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 




Kandahar 



Multan 



/ >urr^ 

M a 1 

• Asirgarh 
• Buranphur 



Chittagong 



Cambay • * Baroda 

rat 

Broach 

Surat i 
Gulf of 
Cambay 



\hahanadi 

Gondwana 



• Nagpur 



lasore 



• Karanja 



•aman 



Bassein @ 



Ahmadnagar 

iffmadnagar 

Satara 



foavati 



Bombay 0 v 
Chaul 
Janjira*> 



Bay of Bengal 



Bimlipatam 

» 

Vizagapatam 



jolcon 

Golconda 



Hyderabad • 



• Bijapur 



Vengurla 



Bhatkal • 



Mangalore • 



Calicut • 



Cochin 0 



Madura • 



Tuticorin 



Quilon • 



Gulf of 
Mannar 



Colombo 






^ari Rud 









AN 



7/ 1 ) 




J\ \ \ 


Major European trading 




settlements, c. 1700 




© French settlement 


, 7 0 


0 Dutch settlement 




• British settlement 






% - 


® Danish settlement 


TIBET 




Attock 


® Portuguese settlement 






1 h i , 


Lhasa • 



Dehli 1 



' Panipal 

) 1526 



Brahrnaput ra 



Thar 

Desert Ajmer 

(Rajputana) 

Ajmer 

Jodhpur • ® 

Lun x 



RAJPUTS 



SATNAMIS ^ 

Laswari • 

Fatehpur Sikri ■ • Agra 

• Biana . 

• ^ 

Gwalior 

Agra 



Lucknow 

• Oudh, 



BrahtndV ^ 



xi* 



Hindaun 



J™P!L0fCancer 



^ ^ • Lahari Bandar 

Rann °f c u 



s Sarkhej 
• Ahmadabad 



Allahabad 

• Benares 

Allahabad 

$ 0 * " 



Rajmahal 1 



Bengal 

Kasimbazar 



V Vijayanagar % • 

VX > N 

T V 



Masulipatam 
Nizampatam 



INDIAN OCEAN 



» Nellore 

Chandragiri 

O Pulicat 
• Madras 
W Sadras 
Pondicherry 
Fort St. David 
® Tegnapatan 
Tranquebar 
Negapatam 



The Mughal Empire 


1526- 


1707 


□ 


Mughal conquest by 1525 


□ 


Mughal conquest by 1539 


□ 


Empire at Akbar's death, 
1605 


Agra 


Mughal subab (province) 


■ 


Empire at the death of Shah 
Jahau (Aurungzeb), 1707 




Maratha raids, 1664-1700 




Maratha territory, c. 1700 


m 


Under Maratha influence, 
c. 1700 


JATS 


People in rebellion against 
the Empire, c. 1700 


X 


Battle 



98 



INDIA 711-1971 



provincial notables, the Chistis made a point of 
refusing endowments and rejecting government 
service, living by cultivating wastelands and from 
donations by their devotees. 

The pirs (Sufi shaikks), who won converts 
among tribal or marginal peoples or from the 
lower Hindu castes, used local languages (includ- 
ing ritual languages) to convey the Islamic mes- 
sage in social and religious milieus that were very 
different from those prevailing in the regions 
where Islam originated. At a popular level it mat- 
tered little if a holy man presented himself as a 
Muslim or a devotee of Shiva: what inspired 
bakhti (devotion) was his individual aura of holi- 
ness. At an intellectual level the philosophical jus- 
tification for religious collaboration between 
Islam and what would come to be known as 
Hinduism (a term invented by Europeans in the 
nineteenth century) could be found in the writ- 
ings of the great Andalusian mystic Ibn al-Arabi, 
whose doctrine of “unity of being” could be har- 
monized with the spiritual teachings of the Vedas 
and the Upanishads. The high point of Hindu- 
Muslim religious harmony was reached during 
the reign of Akbar I (1556-1605), a supporter of 
the Chistis who instituted the Din-i-Ilahi (divine 
religion) . This was an imperial cult with Akbar at 
its center combining the roles of Sufi master and 
philosopher-king. 

In due course, however, practices seen by the 
ulania as syncretic or idolatrous would become 
the targets of reformist movements inspired by 
more orthodox teachings emanating from the 
centers of Islam to the west. The leaders of this 
tendency were Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi 
(1564-1624) and his follower Shah Wali Allah 
(1702-63). The public form of this reaction began 
under Akbar’s grandson Aurungzeb, who 
reversed the policy of accommodation with 
Hindus. He imposed the jizya (poll tax) on non- 
Muslims, ordered the destruction of Hindu tem- 
ples, and founded Muslim colleges for the study 
of the Sharia, as well as banning music at court. 
The reformist currents helped to preserve a dis- 
tinctive Muslim identity during a century of 



Mughal decline, when the British became the 
dominant power in India. Reformers in the tradi- 
tion of Shah Wali Allah encouraged Muslims to 
avoid collaboration with power or social mixing 
with non-Muslims. While Sufi devotional prac- 
tices (including worship at the shrine of saints and 
colorful popular festivals) continued to attract the 
poor, the reformist currents gained ground 
among the emerging class of literate profession- 
als. The reform college of Deoband, founded in 
1867, used the new technology of print in Urdu 
and the burgeoning rail network to reach a mass 
Muslim audience throughout the subcontinent, 




India, Invasions, and 
Regional Powers 1739-60 

0 English base, 1700 

O French base, 1700 

a Portuguese 
base, 1700 

O Dutch base, 1700 



□ British territory, 
c. 1785 

□ Maratha territory, 
c. 1785 



Mysore territory, 
c. 1785 



□ 



Center of Gurkha 
power, c. 1785 

Campaigns 

^ Nadir Shah 
of Persia 

w Ahmad Khan 
Abdali of 

Afnhanistan 



99 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



reinforcing Muslim communal distinctiveness. 
“To like and appreciate the customs of the infi- 
dels,” wrote leading Deobandi scholar Maulana 
Ashraf Ah Thanawi, “is a grave sin.” 

The sense of Muslim separateness was 
encouraged by the British, who tended to stress 
the importance of religious ties over family, lin- 
eage, language, caste, regional, or class affilia- 
tions among India’s variegated communities. The 
Indian Councils Act of 1909 institutionalized sep- 



arate Hindu and Muslim electorates at local level, 
thereby consolidating a separate identity of 
Muslims legally and politically. From there the 
“two-nations” theory, which held that Muslims 
and Hindus constituted distinct and separate 
nations, was a small but inevitable step. The same 
logic decreed that the Muslims of India were enti- 
tled to their own territorial homeland. The state 
of Pakistan, created on Indian independence in 
1947, was constructed out of a disparate variety 




RUSSIAN EMPIRE 



iUKHARA 



Faizabad 



Herat 



_ f / ""Kashmir and Jammu 
fshaWar 1846 British protectorate 



> Rawalpindi 



[ammu 



Kandahar 



Brahmaputra 



[eerut 



Lhasa 



Kathmandu 



PERSIA 



Rajputana 

1818 British protectorate 



O u dn ta P ufi ' 
^ Lucknow 



jmer 

Jimach 



Carchar 

1 882 British protectc 



Darjeeling 



Gwalior. 



Hyderabad 



Karachi 



1886 British protectoro 
Upper 
Burma 
1886 to Britain 



iansi 



'Nimach 



/topic of Come 



Ratin of 
Cuch 



formerly Chinese territory 

• Mandalay 



Chittagong 



Indore J 
Mhow 



'•Central Indian Provinces 
Nagpur • 



Surat *1 



Cuttack 



Bombay# 



Poona 



Nizam’s Dominions 



Bay of Bengal 



[oulmein 



• Hyderabad 



,• Yanam 



Mysore ® 
1831 British 
protectorate 

l&Bangalore 



Andaman Is. 
1857 



[Madras 



Mangalore 



iPondicherry 



Karjkal 



Laccadive 

Islands 



Cochin 



Trincomalee 



Anjengo • 
Trivandrum 1 



innari 



1818 

, «**■"* Kand 
» Ceylon 
1798 to Britain 



Colombo 



?nnkm 



British Conquest of 
India 



British annexation 

I 1753-75 



INDIAN OCEAN 



I | 1792-1805 

i ] 1815-1858 

|_ ] After 1858 

”^| Dependant state 

] Minor dependant state 

ir x m Under British supervision, 

I 1 later annexed 

Boundary of British India, 

c. 1890 

Other territories 

| Portuguese 
] French 

O Area most affected by the 
Indian mutiny of 1857 

Major center of uprising 
^ British campaigns 



100 



INDIA 711-1971 



of Muslim communities located in the territories 
of Sind, Baluchistan, the Northwest Frontier 
province, the western half of the Punjab, and a 
part of Bengal, a mainly Muslim territory locat- 
ed more than a thousand miles to the east, sepa- 
rated by Indian territory In western Pakistan, 
more than half the people were Punjabis, some 20 
percent were Sindhis, 13 percent were Pashtuns, 
and 3-4 percent were Baluchis, with the remain- 
der, apart from small Hindu and Christian 
minorities, Muhajirs, or refugees from India. The 
exchange of populations following partition led 
to a massive bloodbath, in which hundreds of 
thousands of people were killed in communal 
rioting. The unresolved dispute over Kashmir, 
where the Hindu ruler chose to accede to the 
Indian Union against the wishes of his Muslim 
subjects, has contributed to three wars between 
India and Pakistan, in 1949, 1965, and 1971, as 
well as to a continuing cycle of insurgency and 
repression. Pakistan’s political fragility was 
reflected by the succession of military govern- 
ments that alternated with periods of precarious 
democratic rule by parties accused of corruption 
and lacking Islamic legitimacy In the final analy- 
sis the army, controlled by the British-trained 
Punjabi officer class, proved the only institution 
capable of holding the country together. In 1971, 
with military help from India, East Pakistan 
broke away from western Pakistan to form the 
independent Muslim state of Bangladesh. The 
fractious relationship between India and Pakistan 
(both of them now nuclear powers) has yet to be 
resolved. The erosion of India’s secular culture 
consequent on Hindu political revival and official 
Islamophobia occasionally tolerated in some 
states — notably Gujerat — has made the position 
of the Muslim minority remaining in India — 
which numbers some 120 million, about 10 per- 
cent of the population — more vulnerable than at 
any time since partition. The legacy of the 
Muslim conquests has yet to be fully absorbed in 
Indian popular consciousness. A mosque in 
Ayodhya, said to have been built by Babur on the 
site of a temple devoted to the hero-deity Rama, 




and destroyed by Hindu militants in 1991, is still 
a powerful source of contention between India’s 
Hindu and Muslim communities. In the commu- 
nal riots that followed the mosque’s destruction, 
thousands of Muslims were killed — a story tragi- 
cally repeated in 2003 when Hindu pilgrims 
returning from Ayodhya were attacked by 
Muslims in Gujerats, causing widespread com- 
munal conflict in the region. 



Conflict over Kashmir 


1949 - 1971 




Pakistani attacks 




Indian attacks 


* 


Religious unrest and rivalry 




The Taj Mahal, Agra, India 
( completed 1653). One of the 
world’s best-known monuments, 
it is the most enduring emblem of 
Mughal rule in India. It was built 
by the Emperor Shah Jahan in 
memory of his wife Mumtaz 
Mahal. Shah Jahan, who was 
deposed by his son Aurungzeb, is 
also buried there. 



101 





HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Russian Expansion in Transcaucasia and Central Asia 



The Russian expansion into Transoxiana and 
the Caucasus region, which would culminate 
in the incorporation of more than fifty mil- 
lion Muslim peoples into the Soviet Union, 
began in the fifteenth century when the rulers 




Imam Shamil of Daghestan (c. 1797—1871 ), on horseback, from a Russian engraving of c. 1850. 
Shamil waged a heroic campaign (1834—59) against the Russians under the spiritual authority of 
his father-in-law, a shaikh of the Naqshbandiyya Sufi order. Though eventually defeated and sent 
into exile, his memory remained alive in Daghestan and Chechnya, where it has inspired 
successive anti-Russian and anti-Soviet revolts up to the present day. 



of Moscow threw off the Tatar yoke. By the 
1550s Moscow had absorbed the autonomous 
Muslim states of Kazan and Astrakhan, giv- 
ing it control of the Volga and the northern 
shores of the Caspian Sea and opening the 
way for the conquest of the Kazakh steppes. 
The Kazakhs had pulled out of the confeder- 
ation of Turkish-Mongol tribes that had cre- 
ated the Timurid and subsequent empires, 
remaining qazaq (freely roaming) lords of the 
steppes. The Russians built a string of forts 
between the Ural and the Irtysh rivers. This 
enabled them to bring the whole region under 
Russian control, a process marked by the abo- 
lition of the Kazakh khanates in the 1820s. 
However, Kazakh resistance, inspired by 
Islam, would last until the 1860s. 

In its earlier phases Russian rule over its 
Muslim populations was extremely harsh. 
The Tatar nobility were subjected to forced 
conversion and expelled from important 
cities. Their lands were given over to the 
Russian nobility and monasteries, who plant- 
ed them with Orthodox serfs and monks. The 
policy was relaxed under Catherine the Great, 
who regarded Islam as a more civilizing influ- 
ence than Christianity. Muslims were guaran- 
teed religious freedom, mosques were built 
with state sponsorship, and institutions creat- 
ed with broad authority over the Muslim pop- 
ulation. The situation, however, was not to 
last. In the Crimea, which Russia had 
acquired from the Ottomans in 1783, the 
Russians took over Tatar lands and confiscat- 
ed waqfs (religious endowments) for the ben- 
efit of European colonists. Further east the 
mainly pastoral peoples of Inner Asia fell 
prey to the colonizing ambitions of Russian 
generals and the desire of the tsars to secure 
trading advantages with Iran, India, and 



102 





RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN TRANSCAUCASIA AND CENTRAL ASIA 



China, forestalling potential British rivalry. 
Tashkent was occupied in 1865, Samarkand in 
1868, and Bukhara was forced to open its 
frontiers to Russian traders. In the north 
Caucasus the Russians overcame resistance 
inspired by the Naqshbandi and Qadiri 
orders, overthrowing the Islamic state estab- 
lished by Imam Shamil in 1859. By 1900 the 
tsarist conquest of Transcaucasia and Central 
Asia was virtually complete. 

Far from leading to the dissolution of the 
tsarist empire in Asia the Bolshevik revolution 
of 1917-18 led to its consolidation. In their 
struggle against their own conservative reli- 
gious establishments, intellectual advocates of 
Islamic reform, known as jadidists, joined the 
Communist Party. They hoped to modify 
Russian policies to meet the needs of the 
Muslim populations and to promote versions 
of Muslim nationalism in alliance with Soviet 
Russia. The Muslim nationalists were outma- 
neuvered by Stalin and the party centralizers. 
Their leading advocate Mir Said Sultan Galiev 
(b. 1880) was arrested in 1928 and disap- 
peared soon afterward. However, a sense of 
shared values between Islam and communism 
(social justice, the priority of public over pri- 
vate interest, of community over the individ- 
ual) encouraged them to work for their inter- 
ests within the party by adopting a strategy of 
taqiyya (dissimulation). But official Islam suf- 
fered serious assault during the 1930s when 
Stalin launched his “second revolution” front 
above. Mosques were placed in the hands of 
the Union of Atheists, to be turned into muse- 
ums or places of entertainment, while two of 
the five “pillars” of the Islamic faith, the pil- 
grimage to Mecca and the collection of zakat 
(the religious dues used to maintain mosques 
and provide funds for the needy) were effec- 
tively forbidden. The ban on Arabic script 



and its replacement by Latin and later Cyrillic 
scripts ensured that future Soviet generations 
would have much less access than in the past 
to the canonical texts of Islam. 

The potential for political solidarity among 
Soviet Muslims was attacked by a deliberate 
policy of divide and rule. Central Asian states 
of today owe their territorial existence to 
Stalin. He responded to the threat of pan- 
Turkish and pan-Islamic nationalism by parcel- 
ing out the territories of Russian Turkestan 
into the five republics of Uzbekistan, 
Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and 
Tajikistan. The prosperous Fergana Valley, 
which lies at the core of the region and had 
always been a single economic unit, was divid- 
ed between Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Kyrgyz. Stalin’s 
policies demanded that subtle differences in 
language, history, and culture between these 
mainly Turkic peoples be emphasized in order 
to satisfy the Leninist criteria on nationality, 
which required a common language, a unified 
territory, a shared economic life, and a com- 
mon culture. To the new territorial configura- 
tions were added the straitjackets of collec- 
tivization and monoculture. Under Khrus- 
chev’s Virgin Lands scheme vast tracts of 
Kazakhstan were given over to cereal produc- 
tion, and when the mainly pastoral Kazakhs 
resisted, Slavs and other peoples were imported 
to do the work. In Uzbekistan more than 60 
percent of gross domestic production was 
turned over to cotton. This served the interests 
of the ruling party elites, some of whose mem- 
bers became involved in gargantuan frauds 
based on the systematic falsification of pro- 
duction figures. It also left a devastating envi- 
ronmental legacy by starving noncotton crops 
of irrigation and drying up the rivers and lakes, 
including the Aral Sea. 

Distrusting the loyalty of Muslims during 



103 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



the Second World War because some of them 
collaborated with the Germans, Stalin 
deported the whole population of Chechnya- 
Ingushiite and the entire Tatar population of 
the Crimea to Central Asia. 

Although there were undoubted benefits 
resulting from industrialization and the 
introduction of almost universal literacy, the 
retreat of Soviet power following the jihad 
in Afghanistan inevitably saw an upsurge of 
non-communist ideologies, including local 
nationalisms, pan-Turkism, and militant 
forms of Islam. The resurgence of Islamic 
activity after 1989 after more than half a 
century of repression may partly be 
accounted for by the mystical Sufi tradi- 
tions. Originating in Central Asia, they had 
retained their roots. Naqshbandi Sufism, in 
particular, was able to survive official perse- 
cution as the tradition of “silent” rituals 
enabled meetings to take place under other 
guises. Additionally old family networks 
based on the asabiyya of extended kinship 
groups persisted or even flourished by tak- 
ing control of communist institutions. In 
Chechnya where Russia has fought two bru- 
tal wars in 1994-96 and 1999-2002 to sup- 
press local independence movements, the 
persistence of Sufi networks and allegiances 
after seven decades of Soviet rule provides a 
better explanation for anti-Russian activity 
than the foreign-funded Islamist or 
“Wahhabi” militants targeted by spokesmen 
in the Kremlin. 

In Central Asia, despite the retreat of 
Russia, general disillusionment with Soviet 
rule, and the collapse of the local economies, 
the old communist nomenklaturas have man- 
aged to cling to power under new, so-called 
democratic labels that barely conceal the real- 
ity of bureaucractic authoritarian rule. 




• Tsaritsyn 



KHANATE OF 
CRIMEA 

1783 to Russia 



from 1761 nominally dependent 
f— from 1825 complete Russian control 

# Stavropol 



BLACK SEA 
PROVINCE 



• Astrakhan 



^ Pyatigorsk 

. \ Mozdok 

» *,-1784 



hevchenko 



1804 

Kutais 



• Petrovsk 



Batumi • 



„ KHANATE 

829 Tiflis % 

/ • \ Tv/ 

OF GEORGIA % 

• Aleksandropol / 830 

Khanate in nd 
of erivan •v UH # 1806 

-^4 Erivan Gandzha 
KHANATE OF 

{ K- OR KARABAGH cl, 
j NAKHICHEVAN • 

• 1828 shusha 1805 

✓ NaKhichq /an 



.Derbent 1806 



KHANATE 

OKKDBA 



KHANA' 

OF 



IM Krasnovodsk 



pRVAN 
E OF 



Turkmanchai 



Chikishily; 



Russian vassal 
from 1731 



1824 



founded 

1827 



Baghdad • 



104 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN TRANSCAUCASIA AND CENTRAL ASIA 




10S 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Expansion of Islam in Southeast Asia c. 1500—1800 



As in other regions peripheral to the Islamic 
heartlands, Islam came to Southeast Asia by 
trade rather than conquest. In some cases 
Muslim merchants, who carried the prestige of 
Islamic high culture, married into local ruling 
families, providing them with wealth, diplo- 
matic skills, and knowledge of the wider world. 
Adoption of Islam made it easier for chiefs in 
the coastal regions to resist the authority of the 
Hindu rulers who held sway in central Java. 
Sufi teachers, some of them also merchants, 



who arrived from Arabia and India, were able 
to present Islamic teachings in forms that peo- 
ple raised in Hindu traditions could under- 
stand. As trade expanded the adoption of Islam 
made it easier for smaller communities to 
become part of larger societies, favoring the 
further expansion of trade. 

The development of Islam in this largely 
peaceful, organic fashion was disrupted, but 
not reversed, by the appearance of the 
Portuguese, who established themselves as a 




CHAMPA 



intan 



'gganu 



Brunei 



! a Pore 



mate 



anjungoura 



Paiembai 



• Bandanera 



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Flores 



imor 



AUSTRALIA 



106 



EXPANSION OF ISLAM IN SOUTHEAST ASIA c. 1500-1800 



leading maritime power from the sixteenth 
century. Having taken Goa in 1509, the 
Portuguese conquered Malacca on the Malay 
Peninsula in 1511. Paradoxically, this aided the 
spread of Islam by sending Muslim teachers 
and missionaries to the courts of rulers in 
Acheh and Java, which became centers of 
resistance to the Portuguese. The appearance 
of the Dutch (who founded Batavia, later 
Jakarta, in 1619) in search of pepper, cloves, 
nutmeg, and tin complicated the picture, but 
did not reverse the spread, or appeal, of Islam 
in the region. Indeed conflict with the Dutch 



Expansion of Islam in 
Southeast Asia 
1500-1800 

I I Area of Islamic conversion by 1500 

( | Area of Islamic conversion by 1800 
> Islamic trade routes 
Modern borders 



pacific ocean 



■ -J. 



X-- 



NEW GUINEA 



Bis " 1 



arc i 



S e a 






^j 



Papua 



Cape York 

Coral 

Sea 



and Portuguese along with the expansion of 
trade had the reverse effect, bringing contact 
with the Ottoman Empire and an influx of 
scholars and Sufis from Mughal India, espe- 
cially in Acheh. 

Differences between the coastal regions and 
the interiors, the legacies of Hindu and Buddhist 
kingships, the varying impacts of Portuguese, 
Dutch, and British rule, and the different degrees 
of resistance they engendered produced con- 
trasting Islamic styles throughout the Malay 
Peninsula and Indonesian archipelago. A com- 
mon element is the rainfall and rich tropical soil 
that makes much of the land highly produc- 
tive — this fed colonial appetites for cash crops 
such as coffee and, later, rubber. In Southeast 
Asia Islam encountered societies of settled culti- 
vators and relatively ancient polities whose deep 
territorial roots contrast strikingly with the 
flows of pastoral peoples that dominate Islamic 
history in Central or Western Asia. In some 
instances the tides of the faith coming from 
India and Arabia left a residue of ritual and 
practice that combined with the older traditions. 
In Java, for instance, villagers will describe 
themselves as Muslim, but their actual culture 
combines Islamic with Hindu and animist ele- 
ments. Elsewhere, as in Minangkabau, after a 
period of economic upheaval in the eighteenth 
century, reformist currents preaching closer 
adherence to the Sharia became dominant, gen- 
erating social conflicts that resulted in Dutch 
intercession and conquest (1839-45). Generally, 
the Islamic legacy in Indonesia has crystallized 
into two broad tendencies — the rural abangan 
style, which allows a tolerance for non-Sharia 
customs including matrilineal forms of inheri- 
tance, and the stricter santri tradition of the 
cities. Though modern Islamists in both 
Malaysia and Indonesia generally oppose plural- 
ism and cultural mixing, the fact remains that 
both nations have undergone industrial revolu- 
tions that have placed them well ahead of Iran, 
Pakistan, and the Arab-Muslim countries in 
terms of economic development. 



107 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



British, French, Dutch, and Russian Empires 



The enormous increase in the power of the 
European countries that began to take over the 
Muslim world from about 1800 can be traced 
back to the scientific revolution of the seven- 
teenth century and the industrial revolution to 
which it gave birth. Before the mid-1600s 
Western and Muslim civilizations were on rela- 
tively equal terms, militarily and economically. 
By 1800, however, the balance had shifted deci- 
sively and permanently toward what would 
come to be thought of as “the West.” 
Napoleon’s ill-fated expedition to Egypt was 
not halted by the neo-Mamluks, whom he 
defeated at the Battle of the Pyramids, but by 
the British admiral, Nelson, who destroyed the 
French fleet at Aboukir Bay. Henceforth it 
would be competition — military and economic 
— between European nations, rather than con- 
flicts between the Islamic world and the West, 
that would determine the historical agenda for 
the Muslim peoples. 

Numerous explanations have been advanced 
to account for the cumulative rise in European 
power. These range from the spirit of capitalism 
engendered by the Protestant reformers and the 
sudden access to wealth brought back from the 
Americas, to the radical methodology of ques- 
tioning everything advocated by the French 
philosopher Rene Descartes, one of the progeni- 
tors of the scientific revolution. Whatever the 
causes, the effects were far reaching and irre- 
versible. European capital was systematically 
reinvested to finance technical innovation in 
industrial methods of production, such as cot- 
ton spinning, which could destroy traditional 
methods by competition. European military 
power, benefiting from constant technical 
improvements, was deployed to protect and 
extend markets for manufactured products, 
leading to the collapse of local economies and 



the capacity of non-European powers to offer 
resistance. From the perspective of previous eras 
(for example, that of the Crusader Kingdoms 
and the gradual loss of al-Andalus to the 
Christians) the process was extraordinarily 
rapid. By 1920 European power encompassed 
virtually the whole of the planet, except for 
regions considered too unpopulated, poor, or 
remote to be worthy of imperial designs. 

Muslim leaders, both spiritual and secular, 
were at the forefront of resistance to European 
world conquest. In Java Prince Dipanegara, a 
member of one of the ruling families that suc- 
cumbed to Dutch influence and pressures from 
European cultivators, launched a revolt embrac- 
ing displaced peasants and religious leaders that 
lasted from 1825 to 1830. In Bengal, where the 
British East India Company had been trading 
since the early 1600s, the defeat of a local ruler, 
Nawab Siraj al-Dawla, who tried to curb the 
power of the company at the Battle of Plassey 
(1757), opened the way to the British conquest. 
After further defeat at Buksar in 1764 Muslim 
resistance shifted to the large, formerly Hindu 
kingdom of Mysore, where Haidar Ah, a 
Punjabi soldier, created with French assistance a 
disciplined force along European lines. His son 
and successor Tipu Sultan (1750-99) secured a 
notable victory over a British army at the Battle 
of Conjeveram, near Madras, before eventually 
being killed at Seringapatam in 1799, a battle 
that effectively ended resistance to British rule in 
southern India. Afterward resistance shifted to 
the Northwest Frontier or to within the ranks of 
the British-led Indian army. In the late 1820s 
Sayyid Ahmed Barelwi (1786-1831), a mission- 
ary preacher in the reformist Naqshbandi tradi- 
tion who had spent three years in Mecca, tried 
to rally the Yusufzai Pushtuns in the Northwest 
Frontier province as part of a broader campaign 



108 



BRITISH, FRENCH, DUTCH, AND RUSSIAN EMPIRES 



of reform in Indian Islam. His aim of creating 
an Islamic state on liberated territory outside 
British control was frustrated by the Sikhs, who 
defeated him at Balakot in 1831. The Northwest 
Frontier, however, continued to be the focus of 
resistance to British rule long after Barelwi’s 
death. Between 1847 and 1908 there were no 
less than sixty rebellions against the British. 
Many of them had millennarian overtones and 
nearly all were legitimized as jihads against 
infidel rule. 



order, which had accepted Ottoman suzerainty, 
became the source of organized resistance after 
the Italian invasion in 1911. 

The British and French encountered similar 
movements of resistance throughout Muslim 
Africa. Abd al-Qadir, a shaikh of the Qadiriyya 
order, led the resistance to French rule after the 
conquest of Algiers in 1830. He established an 
Islamic state in the western Sahara. This lasted 
until 1847, when the French finally overwhelmed 
it and sent him into exile. In 1881 Muhammad 




SWEDEN 



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GREAT 

BRITAIN 



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Constantinopl 



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Madeira 



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Loand; 



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S. Salvador 



Eurasian Empires c. uoo 

Spanish possessions 
Portuguese possessions 
| British possessions 
French possessions 
Dutch possessions 
Danish possessions 
| Russian possessions 



Many of these movements against European 
imperialism were led by men trained in the dis- 
ciplines and hierarchies of the Sufi tariqas. In 
the Caucasus the Imam Shamil, a leader in the 
Naqshbandi tradition, waged a campaign 
against Russian penetration lasting from 1834 
to 1839. Although the Islamic state he founded 
was eventually incorporated into the tsarist 
empire, Shamil’s memory remained vibrant 
among the peoples of Daghestan and Chechnya, 
who mounted successive revolts against the 
Russians in 1863, 1877, 1917-19, during the 
Second World War, and against the post- 
communist administrations of Boris Yeltsin and 
Vladimir Putin. In Cyrenaica, the Sanusiya 



Ahmad, a shaikh of the Sammaniya branch of 
the Khalwatiya, proclaimed himself Mahdi in the 
Upper Nile region, and launched a jihad against 
the Egyptian government and its foreign backers, 
who were penetrating the region under European 
commanders. The defeat of the Mahdi’s succes- 
sor at Omdurman in 1898 was hailed by Winston 
Churchill, who witnessed the battle, as “the most 
signal triumph ever gained by the arms of science 
over barbarians.” The “arms of science” on this 
occasion were the British machine guns. Familiar 
weapons in small-scale punitive expeditions in 
much of Africa in the 1890s, here they were used 
for the first time against an army of more than 
fifty thousand men. 



109 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Nineteenth-Century Reform Movements 



The tajdid (reform) movements, which have 
dominated Islamic thought and practice since 
the eighteenth century, have internal and exter- 
nal dimensions. Internally the example of 
Muhammad’s attacks on the pagan idolaters of 
Mecca in the name of the “original” monothe- 
istic religion taught by God to Adam, Ibrahim, 
and Ismail, followed by the hijra to Medina, the 
building of a new society, and his purging of 
Mecca’s infidelities after his triumphant recon- 
quest, is in itself a paradigm of religious reform. 
Throughout Islamic history the Prophetic sce- 
nario has been adopted by men of renowned 
learning and piety who have attacked or 
replaced corrupt rulers in the name of restoring 
the true Islam of Muhammad and his genera- 
tion. Many such movements occurred in the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Some of 
these movements were religious responses to 
local practices, such as the custom of praying at 
the tombs of Sufi saints, condemned by the 
Arabian Wahhabis. Others, such as the reform 
movements in the Senegambian region of West 
Africa, involved local resistance to non-Muslim 
political elites; many others, such as the jihad 
movements on India’s Northwest Frontier or the 
Mahdiya in the Nilotic Sudan, were responses 
to European penetration. 

Most of the militant movements of resistance 
and reform, however, occurred among tribal peo- 
ples in peripheral regions. Even when led by men 
of learning, such as the Mahdi Muhammad 
Ahmad or Uthman Dan Fodio, they could only 
succeed if backed by military-tribal power. Once 
it became clear that military solutions were not 
going to work because of the overwhelming 
power of the West, Muslim thinkers began to 
interpret the reformist scenario intellectually 
Where the tribally based movements distin- 
guished between correct religious practice and 
unacceptable innovations, intellectual reformers 
sought to regenerate Islam by distinguishing 
between usul (fundamentals) of Islam, which 



were timeless and adaptable, and furu (the details 
of revelation), which applied to particular cir- 
cumstances. All of the reformers recognized that 
if Islam was to survive and prosper under mod- 
ern circumstances, Muslims must embrace mod- 
ern learning and modern education. In India Sir 
Sayyid Ahmed Khan (1817-98) founded a college 
at Aligarh aimed at creating a modern generation 
of Muslim officials, lawyers, and journalists — 
men who in the course of time would become 
leaders of the Pakistan movement. A more con- 
servative group of Indian ulama founded the 
academy at Deoband in 1867, which combined 
the study of revealed knowledge (Koran, hadith, 
and law) with rational subjects like logic, philos- 
ophy, and science. By taking advantage of the 
railway system to distribute printed materials in 
Urdu, the Deobandis were able to reach all parts 
of Muslim India. This made Deoband the center 
of a new kind of Muslim awareness that spread 
to other countries, with many students coming 
from Afghanistan, Central Asia, Yemen, and 
Arabia. A graduate of Deoband, Maulana 
Muhammad Ilyas, founded the reformist 
Tablighi Jamaat (preaching association) in 1927. 
Originally aimed at converting the Mewatis, a 
peasant community near Delhi, to stricter 
Islamic observance it combined adherence to the 
Sharia with Sufi meditations on the spirit of 
Muhammad as practiced by the Chisti order, to 
which Ilyas himself belonged. The Tablighi 
Jamaat, which formally eschews involvement 
with politics, is one of the fastest growing Islamic 
movements worldwide, with branches in more 
than ninety countries. 

In Egypt the most influential reformer was 
Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905). Originally a dis- 
ciple of the anti-British pan-Islamic activist Jamal 
al-Din al-Afghani (1839-1970), Abduh accompa- 
nied Afghani to exile in Paris after the British 
occupation where they coedited a short-lived but 
influential Arabic pan-Islamist journal Al-urwa al- 
wuthqa “The Strongest Link.” In 1885 Abduh 



110 



NINETEENTH-CENTURY REFORM MOVEMENTS 




A locomotive drags its crowded 
carriages up the narrow-gauge 
Darjeeling Railway, c. 1900. The 
Deobandi reformist movement 
took advantage of the railway 
network to disseminate Islamic 
literature throughout the country, 
adding to the sense of Muslims 
as a distinct community in India. 



broke with his mentor’s hostility to imperialism 
and, returning to Egypt via Syria, decided like 
Ahmad Khan to work with the grain of British 
power, seeing in it a necessary force for modern- 
ization. After rising in the legal service to become 
chief mufti or law officer of Egypt, Abduh sought 
to modernize the Sharia and to introduce subjects 
such as modern history and geography into the 
curriculum of al-Azhar in Cairo, the foremost 
academy of Sunni Islam. He paid particular atten- 
tion to the principle of maslaha (public interest) to 
enable the law to be changed in accordance with 
modern requirements, stating, “If a ruling has 
become the cause of harm which it did not cause 
before, then we must change it according to the 
prevailing conditions.” Abduh believed that, prop- 
erly understood, revelation must be in harmony 
with reason, because Islam was “natural religion” 
designed by God to fit the human condition. Like 
Ahmed Khan he sought to distinguish between the 
essentials and nonessentials of revelation, preserv- 
ing the fundamentals while discarding those 
aspects that were historically contingent or time- 
specific. He tirelessly opposed what he saw as the 
hidebound conservatism of the traditional ulama 
and, again like Ahmad Khan, emphasized the 



need for new applications of the principle of ijti- 
had (individual judgement) to meet modern con- 
ditions. Abduh ’s views were disseminated through 
his legal rulings, writings, and lectures and after 
his death through the periodical al-Manar (“The 
Lighthouse”), published by his Syrian disciple 
Rashid Rida, a member of the reformist 
Naqshbandi order, which ran from 1897 to 1935. 
As a mujaddid (reformer or renovator) of modern 
Islam Abduh ’s influence can hardly be underesti- 
mated. In Southeast Asia the Java-based mission- 
ary Muhammadiyah movement founded in 1912 
by Ahmad Dahlan, which now has millions of 
male and female adherents, owes much to Abduh ’s 
ideas. In the Arab world Dahlan is regarded, with 
Afghani, as the founder of the Salafiyya move- 
ment, inspired by the example of the “pious fore- 
bears,” classically thought of as the first three gen- 
erations of Muslims who received the message of 
Islam in its original context. Modern Salafists who 
can claim a part of Abduh’s intellectual legacy 
range from militant activists who seek to establish 
modern Islamic states, if necessary by violent 
means, to secular nationalists who interpret 
Abduh’s ideas as requiring a complete separation 
between political and religious realms. 



Ill 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Modernization ofTurkey 

The modernization of Turkey extends back at 
least two centuries, when the Ottoman Sultan 
Selim III (1789-1807) attempted to introduce a 
series of educational and military reforms. His 
efforts threatened the interests of the ulania 
and Janissaries and he was deposed. But after a 
string of defeats in the Caucasus and Greece his 
successor Mahmud II (r. 1807-39) made new 
efforts at reform by introducing new Western- 
oriented schools, destroying the Janissary corps 
and dissolving the Bektashi Sufi order linked to 
it. The autonomy of the ulania was weakened 
by the state takeover of waqfs (religious endow- 
ments), Sharia courts, and schools. A symbolic 
separation of religion and state was effected by 
a decree abolishing the wearing of turbans. For 
everyone except the official ulania turbans, 
often the mark of allegiance to one of the Sufi 
tariqas, were replaced by the fez, the red-felt 
cylindrical hat imported from the Maghrib. 
Mahmud’s ambition to create a centralized, 
absolutist state (along the lines of prerevolution 
France or Prussia) was carried on by his succes- 



sors in a series of programs known as the 
Tanzimat-i Hairiye (Auspicious Reorderings) 
that lasted front 1839 to 1876. Modem postal 
systems, telegraph, steamship navigation, and 
railroads were introduced alongside radical 
legal reforms with Western-style courts and law 
codes. A new civil code, the Mejelle, followed 
the Sharia law in content, but differed from tra- 
dition by being administered by state courts. 

In 1855 the jizya (poll tax) — a formal mark 
of religious inferiority — was replaced by a tax 
on exemption from military service. The new 
centralized government that was coming into 
being was founded on a social base of new 
professionally trained bureaucrats. The small 
urban middle class enjoyed a rising economic 
status that enabled it to challenge the religion- 
based power-structure of the religious commu- 
nities. The Tanzimat reforms altered the 
previous basis of Ottoman society by abolishing 
the autonomy of Islamic educational and judi- 
cial institutions, bringing them under state con- 
trol. The reforms stimulated the emergence of 



British troops at Gallipoli, 
together with other Western 
Allies, were deployed on the 
peninsula from 25 April 1915 
until 9 January 1916. Their 
objective was to threaten 
Constantinople and to open a 
supply route to Russia across the 
Black Sea. The Turkish forces 
were commanded by Lieutenent 
Colonel Mustafa Kemal, whose 
drive and energy thwarted the 
Allied plan. His success would 
lead him to the office of 
National President. 




112 



MODERNIZATION OF TURKEY 




• Temesvar 



ROMANI 

Bucharest • 



Constanta 



'ristina 



Scutari, 



Adrianople 



Serbian Army • 
rescued by Allies Dumzzo 
and transported to Salonika 

Adriatic 

Sea r 



Constantinople 



Monasth 



! \ _ r t Thasos 

9 Salonika 

Allied landing 5 October 1 91 5: Samothrace 

The following offensive to assist Serbia 
is driven back by Bulgarian 2nd Army 



Gallipoli 



Gorkceada 



Limnos 



Pristina 



Lake 

Scutari 



SERBIA 

Uskub / 



Scutari 



hastir 

Lake 



Salonika 



pri Austrian invasion of Serbia repulsed 
UJ 29 July -15 December 1914 



|~5~~| Serbian retreat November 1915 



[71 Romanian forces invade Transylvania 
L^J 27 August 1916 

p pi German counteroffensive forces 
L_l Romanians to retreat Sept-Dec. 1916 



nn Bulgarian advance forces back 
I — I Russian-Romanian defense Oct. 1916 



© Allied front lines, 

15 September 1918 

© Allied front lines, 

29 September 1918 



The Balkans 2 

September-November 1918 

British advance and 
front line 

French advance and 
front line 
Serbian advance 
and front line 
Italian advance and 
front line 

Greek front line 



• Sofia 

BULGARIA 



The Balkans 1 1914-18 

•p" German attacks 




Russian retreat 




Austro-Hungarian attacks 




Allied attack 


- -r 


Austro-Hungarian retreat 


-'T' 


Allied retreat 




Serbian counterattack 


—r- 


Turkish counterattack 


- -r 


Serbian retreat 


■ 


German front line 




Bulgarian attacks 


• 


Austro-Hungarian front line 




Romanian attacks 


■ 


Bulgarian front line 


- -r 


Romanian retreat 


■ ' 


Romanian frontline 



113 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk, 
1881—1938, founder of the 
Turkish secular state. 



the “Young Turks,” a movement among the 
intelligentsia who wished to move in a European 
direction. In 1908 the vanguard of this move- 
ment, the Committee for Union and Progress 
(CUP), which had infiltrated the army, came to 
power in a military coup. The sultan was forced 
to restore the constitution he had suspended in 
1876 and there was a front of parliamentary 
government. The real power remained with the 
army and the CUP, which embarked on a radical 
program of secularization, reducing the powers 
of the shaikh al-Islam (the chief religious func- 




tionary) , and imposing government control over 
Sharia courts and Muslim colleges. Though 
nationalist in outlook the Young Turks aimed to 
keep control of the eastern part of the Empire. 



With help from Germany, whose military advis- 
ers were driving reforms in the army, the 
Berlin-Baghdad railroad was constructed. The 
first decade of the twentieth century also saw 
the construction of the famous Hejaz railway 
from Damascus to Medina (the link to Mecca 
was never completed). While facilitating the 
passage of pilgrims to the holy places of Islam, 
the railway was also designed to speed the pas- 
sage of troops into the Peninsula to control trib- 
al revolts in Syria and Arabia. The Ottomans 
continued to lose territory during the second 
decade of the twentieth century with the loss of 
Libya, Albania, and most of their European 
possessions in the Balkan wars. The coup de 
grace came with the First World War (1914—18). 
Having joined the Central Powers (Austria and 
Germany) against Britain, France, and Russia, 
the Empire lost its remaining Arab provinces to 
the three-pronged attack launched by Britain in 
Iraq and Palestine, and to the Arab tribes led by 
the Sharif of Mecca’s son Faisal with the help of 
the British adventurer T. E. Lawrence. 

Despite the loss of its Arab provinces Turkey 
itself retained its independence as a Muslim 
country after the First World War, thanks to the 
efforts of Mustafa Kemal (later to be called 
Atatiirk, “Father of the Turks”). A Young Turk 
general, he had saved Istanbul by defending the 
Gallipoli Peninsula from invasion by the British 
imperial forces in 1915. After forming a provi- 
sional nationalist government Atatiirk mobi- 
lized the Turkish people against the partition of 
the Anatolian heartland, and losses to French- 
controlled Syria and to Greece, as well as to 
Kurds and Armenians (whose proposed state in 
the northeast was effectively partitioned 
between Turkey and the newly emergent Soviet 
Republic). Having defeated the Greeks (who 
had been awarded the mainly Greek area 
around Smyrna (Izmir) under the humiliating 
terms of the 1920 Treaty of Sevres) Kemal won 
international recognition for complete and 
undivided Turkish sovereignty in Anatolia, 
Adrianople (Edirne), and eastern Thrace 



114 




MODERNIZATION OF TURKEY 



(European Turkey) at the Treaty of Lausanne in 
1923. Atatiirk resolved its problems with Greece 
by the brutal but effective means of an exchange 
of populations. 

Having established his authority as the vic- 
tor or ghazi-warrior over Turkey’s enemies, 
Atatiirk embarked on a radical program of 
modernization. In 1923 the sultanate was sepa- 
rated from the caliphate, and the former abol- 
ished. The following year the caliphate was 
abolished, along with the Sharia courts. 
Islamic law was replaced by adapting the Swiss 



civil code to Turkish needs. The Latin alphabet 
was introduced for the Turkish language 
(which had previously been written in Arabic 
script), with a view to separating Turkey from 
the Islamic past and making literacy more 
accessible. The Sufi orders were banned and 
driven underground. The fez, which had ironi- 
cally acquired the status of an “Islamic” item 
of headgear, was abolished, to be replaced by 
the peaked cloth cap worn by European work- 
ers at that time. 




* Adrianopol^^] 
Istanbul Uskudar 

• Gallipoli Skelessi 
Mudani^« y *Nicoea 

Bursa 



Trebizond 



The New Turkey 1926 



Eskisehir ■ Ankara 



SokorytTpf^ 

9 • Usak 

Alasehir 



British possession, 1914 



^ • Erzurum 
Armenia 



/Izmir 



• Kayseri 



British mandate, 1920 



Malatya 



1920-22 
lo France 



Tabriz 



Under British protection, 1914 



Gaziantep 



French mandate, 1920 



• Mosul 
Kirkuk . 



y 1920-22 
to Greece 



Cyprus i Akwitesj S T r 
to Britain Tripoli • • Homs 

1878 leased n . 
imamxed ,¥™t| J 
1923 ceded by Turkey LeBan “\7 • Damascus 

" Sea Palestine 

Tel Aviv • # Amman 

y , Gaza • •jerusalen/ 



Italian possession 



Ottoman Empire, 1914 

Turkey after the Treaty 
of Sevres, 1920 

Temporary Italian 
occupation (to 1921) 



Kermanshah 



Habbaniyya • • Baghdad 

' ' 'a. Karbala • *’> 



Jexandria 



Area ceded by USSR, 1921 



Turkish campaign, 1920-23 



• Aljawf 



:uwait 



Tabuk • 



neutral zones 



Turkey after the Treaty 
of Lausanne, 1923 



Hejaz\ 

1916 independent 

1925-26 to Nedj 



Medina 



'man 



.Muscat 



Z AND 
kingdom from 1926 



Mecca" 



1889 to Italy 

Asmara • 



Massawa 



• Aduwa''^* 



Mukalla 



1 15 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



The Muslim World under Colonial Domination c. 1920 



The defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First 
World War brought the vast majority of Muslim 
societies under direct or indirect colonial rule. By 
1920 the only independent Muslim states were 
Turkey (revitalized under Kenial Ataturk), Persia, 
where the Qajar dynasty would shortly be 
replaced by the Pahlavis (1923), Afghanistan 
under the modernizing regime of King 
Amanullah (1919-29), northern Yemen, where 
the Zaidi Imam Yahya won control after the 
Ottoman defeat, Central Arabia (Najd), and the 
Hejaz, the Muslim holy land containing the cities 
of Mecca and Medina, still under control of the 
Hashemite family The remainder of Dar al- 
Islarn was either under direct colonial rule or 
under some form of internationally recognized 
European “protection.” Two new principles were 
being established that would bring these former 
colonies or semi-colonies into the international 
system: the fixing of boundaries (usually for the 
convenience of European states) and in the case 
of shaikhdoms bound by treaty to Britain, the 
“freezing” of dynasties to ensure continuity of 
government (though not necessarily through the 
European system of primogeniture). Legitimacy 
of succession would prevent the disruptive dis- 
putes that often followed the death of a tradi- 
tional ruler and bind his heirs into the existing 
treaty arrangements. 

By 1920 France controlled the whole of north- 
western Africa except for the coastal strips of 
Spanish Sahara and Spanish Morocco. Italy was 
extending its rule far beyond the coastal 
provinces of Tripoli and Cyrenaica (though this 
task would not be completed until 1934). Britain, 
which since 1882 had occupied Egypt, the cultur- 
al center of the Muslim world, permitted the for- 
mer Ottoman province a nominal independence 
under a constitutional monarchy, but retained 
overall strategic control. This led to the paradox 
of a formally neutral country becoming host to 
thousands of British and Empire troops during 
the Second World War. Following Kitchener’s 



destruction of the Islamic state created by the 
Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad in 1898, Britain took 
control of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, whose 
realm now extended deep into Equatorial Africa. 
Having taken Tanganyika from Germany, Britain 
controlled most of the Swahili coast except for 
the portion that formed part of Italian 
Somaliland. From Aden Britain contested the 
Bab al-Mandeb — the strategic entrance to the 
Red Sea — with Italy, which ruled in Eritrea, while 
retaining its grip on the Arabian littoral from 
Aden to Basra, having locked the shaikhdoms 
south of Arabia and the Gulf into exclusive 
treaties that guaranteed British control of 
defense and foreign policy 

In the Indian subcontinent, the British had 
locked some 560 princely rulers — some of them 




116 



MUSLIM WORLD UNDER COLONIAL DOMINATION c. 1920 



Muslims — into a mosaic of different treaties and 
agreements, placing them and their Muslim sub- 
jects under the umbrella of British rule. In 
Southeast Asia Britain controlled the Malay 
states, while the Netherlands had extended its 
sway beyond its original colonies in Java and 
Sumatra. In Muslim Central Asia and the 
Caucasus region, the communist revolution and 
subsequent civil war had consolidated the power 
of Moscow within a new regional order. 

In the core region of the Mashriq, Palestine 
had been opened to Jewish settlement under the 
terms of the mandate granted to Britain by the 
League of Nations. Under the terms of the secret 
Sykes-Picot agreement reached with France in 
1916 Britain also acquired mandates — a euphe- 
mism for colonies — in Transjordan and Iraq, 
while France took control of Lebanon and Syria. 
Faisal ibn Hussein, son of the sharif of Mecca 



who had liberated Damascus from Ottoman 
Turkey with British help, had intended to make 
Syria an independent Arab state in accordance 
with a somewhat ambiguous undertaking his 
father had received from Sir Henry McMahon, 
the British High Commissioner in Egypt in 1915. 
In the aftermath of the war, however, it became 
clear that for the Muslim world imperial interests 
would supersede the national right of self- 
determination famously proclaimed by President 
Woodrow Wilson as the basis for the postwar set- 
tlement in Europe. Protest at the double standard 
that allowed the recognition of national rights 
for the subjects of Christian empires in Europe 
(including Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Jews, 
and Irish, as well as former Ottoman subjects in 
the Balkans) while denying them to Muslims ani- 
mated the anticolonial resentment that would 
surface throughout former Ottoman territories. 



European Imperialism in 
the Muslim World 


□ 


Independent Muslim state, 
1920 


Territory under colonial rule 1920 


m 


British 


m 


French 


□ 


Italian 


m 


Portuguese 


□ 


Spanish 


■ 


Dutch 


m 


United States 


□ 


Russia 


GO 


Dependent princely state 


52 


Area of British influence 


52 


Area of Russian influence, 
1907-21 




Muslim concentration: Muslims 
live in scattered communities 
throughout China 




BULG. 



Tashkent 



Istanbul 



Peking (Beijing) 



TURKEY 



Athens 



Weihaiwei 



Soviet 

influence* Tehran 



French SYRIA 
Mandate 



AFGHANISTAN 



PERSIA 



Nanking 



VS j 

JORDAN 



TIBET 



• Shanghai 



Cairo • 



British 

influence 



BHUTAN 



EGYPT 



BAHRAIN 



Taiwan ^ 



Chandernagore • 
Calcutta * 

INDIA 



Canton 

Kwangchowwan Hong Kong 

Macao 



OMAN 
Under Br. Prot. 



Diu 

Daman* 

Bombay 

Goa 



Yanaon 



Khartoum 



YEMEN HADHRAMAUT 



ANGLO- 

EGYPTIAN Addis 
SUDAN Ababa 



ADEN 



SQippine 

JsfSbds 



Mahe 



DJIBOUTI 

BR. 

SOMALI- 

LAND 



Socotra 



Karikal 



Laccadive Is. C3 



Nicobar Is. 



Ceylon 



N. BORNEO 



BR. BRUNEI 



malayA 



Maidive Is. Q 



SARAWAK 



Halmahera 



UGANDA 



Singapore 



BELGIAN 



KENYA 

^Nairobi 



Borneo 



Sumatra 



Celebes 



Belgium 

Mandate 

CONGO 



(3 Seychelles 



Djakarta 



Amirantes 



TANGANYIKA Zanzibar 

Br. Mandate 



Timor 



C') Christmas Is. 



Cocos Is. 





• Madras 




S X /TRENCH 
INDO- 


Manila 


% 


\\ 


Pondicherry 


Andaman Is. 


CHINA 


* 





117 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Balkans, Cyprus, and Crete 1500—2000 



The Saljuq and subsequent Ottoman conquests 
in the Balkans left a residue of Muslims in 
Europe who arrived as settlers or adopted Islam 
by conversion. Unlike the conquest of Anatolia, 
where the Byzantine ecclesiastical institutions 
were suppressed as imperial rivals, the Orthodox 
Church in the Balkans was given effective juris- 
diction of the Christian communities. This fac- 
tor may have limited conversions in the Christian 



Stari Most bridge, Mostar, 
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Before its 
destruction by Bosnian-Croatian 
artillery fire in 1993, the bridge 
was one of the finest surviving 
examples of Ottoman 
engineering and design. 
Completed in 1566 by 
Khairuddin, a pupil of the great 
Ottoman architect Sinan, it 
spanned 30 meters with an arch 
rising to 27 meters above the 
Neretva River. The rebuilding of 
the bridge has become a symbol 
for the restoration of Bosnia’s 
fractured community 
relationships. 




Balkans as compared with Anatolia. 

The permanent Islamic presence in Europe 
was first established by Turkish migrants to 
northern Greece, Bulgaria, and Albania in the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with the lead- 
ing role played by the tekkes (hospices) founded 
by Sufi holy men, which often became the nuclei 
of village communities. In rural areas conver- 
sions were facilitated by Sufi orders such the 
Mevlevis and Bektashis. They found ways of 
conveying Islamic ideas to peasants with 
Christian or “heretical” beliefs, such as those of 
the Bogomils, an initiatory gnostic sect whose 
influence spread throughout Catholic southern 
Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 
Conversion was greatest in Albania, Bosnia- 
Herzegovina, and Bulgaria, especially among 
the Pomaks of the Rhodopes, whose mountain- 
ous lands extend into the modern states of 
Greece and Macedonia, as well as Crete. Thanks 
to official Ottoman support for Orthodoxy, 



however, the fact that Christians remained the 
overwhelming majority in the Balkans would 
make them, initially, more susceptible than the 
Empire’s Muslim subjects to the forces of 
nationalism and revolution that swept through 
Western Europe in the nineteenth century A cen- 
sus conducted between 1520 and 1530 showed 
that 19 percent of the Balkan population was 
Muslim, 81 percent was Christian, and there was 
a small Jewish minority. The largest concentra- 
tion of Muslims was in Bosnia (about 45 per- 
cent). Most of the Muslims lived in cities. For 
example, Sofia (now capital of Bulgaria) had a 
Muslim majority of 66.4 percent. 

With the turning of the tide of conquest in 
Catholic Hungary, the rise of Orthodox nation- 
alisms in Greece, Serbia, Romania, and 
Bulgaria, and the dismemberment of the 
Ottoman Empire in Europe, Muslims lost their 
political protection. Many of those who failed 
to retreat with the Ottoman armies were mas- 
sacred or forcibly converted to Christianity. 
Large numbers migrated after the Russo- 
Turkish war of 1878, the Balkan wars of 
1912-14, and after the First World War, when 
there was a formal exchange of populations 
between Muslim Turks living in Greece (includ- 
ing Crete and the Dodecanese islands) and 
Greeks on mainland Anatolia. Cyprus, which 
like Crete had been taken by the Ottomans 
from the Venetians (1571), became part of the 
British Empire after the Congress of Berlin in 
1878, preventing its Orthodox majority from 
opting for union with Greece (as Crete did in 
1913) and thus excluding it from the exchange 
of populations in 1920. The island has been 
divided since 1972, when Turkey intervened 
militarily to prevent a nationalist military gov- 
ernment from uniting the island with Greece. 

Albania is still largely Muslim (70 percent) by 



118 



BALKANS, CYPRUS, AND CRETE 1S00 - 2000 



culture. After a prolonged antireligious cam- 
paign by the communist government, which 
declared the country to be the world’s first offi- 
cially atheist state, Islamic beliefs and practices 
are being revived. Substantial Muslim minorities 
remain in Bulgaria (13 percent), although the 
Bulgarian Turks (who number around 600,000) 
have migrated to Turkey in considerable num- 
bers following a sustained campaign of 
Bulgarianization by communist and post- 



communist governments (including the elimina- 
tion of Muslim first and family names). 

In Bosnia Muslims constitute about 45 percent 
of the population. The civil war (1991-95) 
between the Serbs and the Muslim-Croat coalition 
led to a series of atrocities including massacres and 
attempts at “ethnic cleansing,” which prompted 
intervention by NATO air forces and the signing of 
the 1995 Dayton Accords dividing Bosnia into sep- 
arate Muslim-Croatian and Serbian states. 




until 1917 



MOLDAVIA 



1878 
to Russia 



Galati« 



N created 1858 



Mitrovica 



Bucharest 



DOBRUJA 



WALLACHIA 
• Craiova 



'Plevna 



•Varna 



lurgas 



• Yamboli 
EAST RUMELIA 

I Aaritsa \\ 



1878 to Serbia 



NEGRO NOVUV 



Prizren 



, Adrianoplc 



Gusinje 



Constantinople 



Uskiib (Skopje) ^ 



Sea of 
Marmara 



Durazzc 



Angora 

(Ankara) 



EPIRUS, 



THESSALY 

1881 to Gr 



Mitilini 

( I.eshosJ 



Smyrna 



LIVADL 



various minor , 



Rhodes 



1863 to Greece 



Crete 

1824-40 to Egypt 
1908 to Greece 



Aust. Prtot. 1878 
Annexed by Austria 
1908-09 



adjustments in favour 



of the Ottoman Empire 
1897 



1878 to Britain 

Cyprus 



The Balkans, 
Crete, and Cyprus 

1878-1912 



date of independence 



119 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 




Ottoman territory in 1913 



MOLDAVIA 



date of independence 



Galati* 



Mitrovica 



Bucharest 



Craiova 



Plevna 



• Varna 



KINGDOM OF 



K. OF 
MONTE- 



Yamboli 



BULGARIA 



• Adrianople 

1 91 5 to Bulgaria 

THRACE 

1913 to Bulgaria Seaof 

• Dedeagach „ Marmara 
'j . Gallipoli 

' 



Constantinople 



(Shkadra)' 



191 3 to Serbia 



Durazzo 



PR. OF 
ALBANIA 



Mudania 



Thasos 



Salonika 



Lemnos 



Janina 



THESSALY 



Mitilini , 
(Lesbos) t 



KINGDOM 



Smyrna 



Samos 



PELOPONNESE 



1912 e 
' Italian occupied 



The Balkans, 
Crete, and Cyprus 
1912-13 



EMPIRE 
until 1917 



Montenegro 

Gusinje jakova m • KumanovoV 

icutari Uslciih (Skopje) V ^BlllgC 



Annexed in 1914 
by Britain 

Cyprus 



120 




BALKANS, CYPRUS, AND CRETE 1S00 - 2000 




demilitarized zone 
1920-22 



MOLDAVIA 



Imuy 



TRANSYLVANIA 



1918-20 
to Romania 

R Izmail 



Ploesti 



Galati 



Bucharest 



Craiova 



'Plevna 



•Varna 



BULGARIA 



Yamboli 



Adrianople 

,11923 Edirne) 

1920-22 
to Greece 



Djakova 



Cattaro Gusinje 

Scutari 

(§|ikadra)' 

Durazzo • 



Constantinople 



# *Kumanovo 
Uskiib (Skopje) 



THRACE 

^ • Dedeagai 



Sea of 
Marmara 



Ankara 



ALBANIA 



nasos 



ialonika 



amna 



THESSALY 



imyrna 



PELOPONNESE 



Modes 



The Balkans, 
Crete, and Cyprus 
1920-23 



b . Belgrade 

% Q „ % 

% O % 

T I 

< s? SERBIA 



BOSNIA 



*7 • 

Nish 



121 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Muslim Minorities in China 



This Chinese minaret symbolizes 
the adaptability of Muslim 
architecture to local vernacular 
forms. Unlike the traditional 
cathedral or church, there is no 
religiously prescribed 
architectural form for the 
mosque other than the mihrab (a 
decorated niche ) indicating the 
direction of prayer. 




The Muslim communities of China are 
descended from Arab, Persian Central Asian, 
and Mongol traders who married Chinese 
women and mostly lived in small communities 
clustered around a central mosque. Their 
descendents, along with those of other incom- 
ers who arrived from Mongolia and Central 
Asia over the course of centuries, are known as 
the Hui. The Hui number roughly half of 
China’s twenty million Muslims. Unlike other 
groups, which tend to be concentrated in areas 
bordering on the Central Asian republics, they 
are spread throughout the country, though 
there is a particular concentration in the 
Ningxia Hui Autonomous region. The Hui are 
recognized by the state as a national minority — 
the third largest in China — and the only minor- 
ity to be defined by religious affiliation. The 
other recognized Muslim minorities include the 
Uighurs of the Xinjiang region, and the 
Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tatars, and Tajiks 
whose homelands are located in the territories 



of the former Soviet Union. 

Though they developed a distinctive way of 
living as a Muslim minority outside the bor- 
ders of Dar al-Islam the Hui were far front 
being isolated from the spiritual currents flow- 
ing from the Islamic heartlands. Sufism made 
substantial inroads from the seventeenth cen- 
tury, with shaikhs from the Naqshbandiyya, 
Qadariyya, and Kubrawiyya orders establish- 
ing networks of tariqas and brotherhoods 
throughout mainland China. During periods 
of turbulence from the seventeenth to nine- 
teenth centuries the orders helped organize a 
series of Muslim-led rebellions in Yunnan, 
Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xinjiang. Much of this 
unrest was the result of intra-Muslim violence 
caused by the impact on local Hui communi- 
ties of reformist ideas imported from Arabia. 
For example, in 1781 a Naqshbandi shaikh, 
Ma Mingxin (b. 1719), who had studied in 
Arabia and Yemen for sixteen years, was exe- 
cuted after leading a movement, known as the 



122 




MUSLIM MINORITIES IN CHINA 




1912 to Russia 



]• Urumchi 
- 1871-81 
to Russia x 



Kan sU 



lJV «T4 N 



Burma 



^tencn 

lndo- 

CVn° a 



Bay of Bengal 



New Teaching or New Sect, which attacked the 
cult of saint- worship. In the 1860s and 70s 
another Naqshbandi shaikh, Ma Hualong, 
launched a major rebellion, which cut off the 
Qing (Manchu) Empire from the northwest, 
opening the way for rebellion of the Uighurs in 
Xinjiang. In more recent times a Wahhabi- 
inspired reformist movement at the turn of the 
twentieth century known as the Yihewani 
(from the Arabic ikhwan, meaning brother- 
hood) was active in opposing practices deemed 
idolatrous. Such practices included the venera- 
tion of Sufi saints or the wearing of Chinese 
mourning dress. Under communist rule the 
Yihewani received more state patronage than 



the more traditionalist Hanafis known as 
Gedimu (from the Arabic qadint, meaning 
old). Though all Muslim groups were perse- 
cuted during Mao Zedong’s Cultural 
Revolution (1966-76), with at least one major 
massacre of Hui in the wake of an uprising in 
Yunnan, state patronage of the Yihewanis per- 
sisted in the more relaxed climate that followed 
the accession of Deng Xiaoping. 

After the incorporation of Hong Kong into the 
People’s Republic of China, the small 
Muslim community on the island 
has also built relations with 
other groups on the 



China under 
the Manchu 
Dynasty 1840-1912 






Area of rebellion 

Muslim rebellion, 
1863-73 

British attacks, 
1840-41 

(the Opium War) 
Anglo-French 
attacks, 1858-60 



Sino-French War, 1883-85 

w-w Chinese attacks 



mainland. 



123 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



The Levant 1500—2002 



Unlike Egypt, which the Ottomans and their 
clients ruled as a single substate or province, the 
Levant, comprising Syria, Mount Lebanon, and 
Palestine, remained a patchwork of communities 
bound by a variety of tribal, ethnic, and religious 
affiliations under local leaders. The latter were 



formally subjects of the Ottoman sultans until the 
twentieth century, when France and Britain divid- 
ed the region into client states with precarious 
national identities. The Levant remained subject 
to occidental cultural influences long after the 
Crusades, with the Maronite Church based in the 



The Last Years of Turkish Rule 


1882- 


1916 


© 


Official attempts to prevent Zionist 
immigrants landing 


♦ 


Jewish settlements 1886-1914 


• 


Anti-Zionist societies established (also 
in Cairo and Constantinople (Istanbul)) 


• 


Zionists purchase 2400 acres of land 
1910-11 


[Haifa] 


Anti-Zionist newspapers published 
1908-14 protesting Jewish land 
purchase from Arabs 


--- 


Line west of which should be excluded 
from future Arab State 
(McMahon, 25 October 1915) 




Areas declared by Sharif of Mecca to 
be part of a purely Arab kingdom 
(5 November 1915) 


0 


50 km 


i 

0 


1 i 

50 miles 



Lake 

Burullus 



» Ceyhai 



\\ 



> Gaziantep 




Tf3yjtA'5fg < r OF 

; Atjjppo 

if 



• Aleppo 
(Hales) 



SYRIA 



Nicosia 

CYPRUS 

• Larnaca 

• Limassol 



• Famagusta 



Mediterranean Sea 





Hadera^. 
Netanya 



Petah Tikva 
Te^viv • ^ 

I Jaffa ira ▼ Ben Shemen *-'■ ■ 

Rehovo?V 



(ericoi 
_ • « 

^Jerusalem 
• Bethlehem: 
. Hebron ■ 



» Gar-al-Azraq 



» Damietta 
Lake 
Harzala 



MUTASARRIFLIK 
OF JERUSALEM 
• Beersheba 



2500 

1500 

1000 



• El Qantara 

Y P 



El Quseima ' 



Bayir < 



124 




THE LEVANT 1S00 - 2002 



northern Lebanese highlands adopting Latin rites 
and acknowledging Papal supremacy. The south- 
ern highlands overlooking the plains of Galilee 
were the homeland of the Druze people, a schis- 
matic Shiite sect regarded as heretical by other 
Muslims. Under the Maan family (1544—1697) 
and the Shihabs (1697-1840), who replaced them, 
the division of power between the Maronites and 



Druzes was relatively even, with Ottoman gover- 
nors balancing the interests of both groups. How- 
ever, the decline in Ottoman power from the eigh- 
teenth century saw increasing tension and sectar- 
ian rivalry between Maronites and Druzes, abet- 
ted by competition between France and Britain. 
This led to a succession of massacres and bitter 
sectarian wars between 1838 and 1860. 




Gallipoli 



• Bursa 



• Amaysa 
Tokat • 



Ankara 



Gumusane 



• Eskisehir 
Sivrihis*r 



Yerevan 



• Erzincan 



• Erzurum 



• Akhisar 
• Manisa 0 g 
• Alasehir 
din * * Nazilli 
M endares 



• Aksaray 



Malatyt 



Khvov 



• Adiyaman • Diyarbakir 



• Tabriz 



Maras 



Karaman, 



Hakkari 



Adana 



Gaziantep* 



Mardin 



Alexandretta 1 ^ 
Antakya • 



Mosul 



Qazvin 



Latakia 



Kirkuk 



Nicosia • 



• Hama 



Limmasol 



• Homs 



• Hamadan 



Beirut 



Kermanshah 



• Borujerd 
• Khorramabad 



Damascus 



Baghdad 



Habbaniyah • 



PALESTINE 

Tel-Aviv • 



Karbala* • Al Hillah 



# Amman 
(Jerusalem 



Dezful 



Alexandria 



Shushtar 



Damanhur 



Beersheba 



• Tanta 



• Ahvaz 
ibu Dhabi • 



Bandar-e 

Sharpur 



Abadan* 



Sakakah 



Al Jawf 



KUWAIT 

^ • Kuwait 



Tabuk 



Buraydah 



Unayzah 



QATAR 

(under 

British 

protection) 



Al Hufuf • 



Medina 



Yanbu‘al Bahr 



SUDAN 

(under British protection) 



El Giza •• Cairo 

EGYPT ^ Faiyum * 
funder British protection) 

ariya Oasis* 

El Minya * 



— 40 ° 



Esfahan 



• Oasis of 
Farafra 



Sykes-Picot Plan May 1916 


n 


French rule 


□ 


Russian rule 


□ 


Arab State, to be under French protection 


□ 


area to be under British, French and 
Russian protection 


■ 


British rule, including Haifa enclave 


□ 


Arab State to be under British protection 



BAHRAIN 

\ I (under 

Al Qatif • British 

Dhahran • I protection) 



» Mecca 



125 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



The Ottoman defeat in 1918 saw the division 
of the Levant between French and British 
spheres of influence, with the victorious allies 
creating four colonial dependencies — Iraq, 
Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine — out of the for- 
mer Ottoman provinces. After ousting Faisal, 
son of the ruler of Mecca and leader of the Arab 
revolt against the Turks who had set up a provi- 
sional government in Damascus, the French 



imposed direct rule on Syria and Lebanon while 
Britain opened up Palestine for European Jewish 
settlement and established client monarchies in 
Transjordan and Iraq. While creating a modern 
bureaucracy in Syria along with an infrastructure 
of roads and communications networks, the 
French undermined national integration by 
organizing administrative districts that reinforced 
ethnic and religious divisions. In particular they 



Konya 

. Antalya • Karaman 






TURKEY 

• Adiyaman • Diyarbakir 

Z 5 • Maras / 

v ' . , Mardin 

• Adana • Gaziantep • Urfa • 

• Iskcnderun ^ L *^* 



( 1/1 X 



[y v 



HATAY 
Antakya • 



i Aleppo 



Latakia j 



Nicosia 

CYPRUS 



Mediterranear 

Sea 



TERR. OF , H ama 
Limmasol ALAWITES SYRIA 

Homs 



Tripoli i 



Beirut i 



LEBA 



NON 

• : 



IRAQ 

(MESOPOTAMIA) 

A 



50° 



League of Nations Mandate 1921 

I I French Mandate, 1921, (areas formally 

I 1 under Ottoman rule) 

Arab areas helped by Britain in their 

| revolt against Ottoman rule, then 

becoming independent 

□ British Mandate, 1921, (areas formally 
under Ottoman rule) 

1 Areas under British rule or control in 1914 



] Palestine in 1922 



Haifa 



PALESTINE 

Tel-Aviv • # Amman 

• Jerusalem 

: Port Said Gaza • 

Damanhur • • 

I c • Becrsheba 



Habbaniyah • • Baghdad Khorramabad < 

Karbala • • A1 Hillah 



Alexandria 



•Tanta 

Zagazig* 

• Cairo 
al-Giza • 

EGYPT 

al-Faiyum • 



al-Minya • 



TRANS- 

JORDAN 



S\> 



• Asyut 



Aljawf • • Sakakah 



» Tayma 



• A1 Hillah 
i An Najaf 

Basra # 
Abadan < 



i Dezful 
• Shushtar 



► Bandar-e 
Sharpur 



PERSIA 

(IRAN) 



NEUTRAL ZONE 






KUWAIT 
i •'hKuwait 



» Shiraz 






• al-Wajh 



» Burayda 



Unayza < 



G> 



# al-Qatif 

Dhahran • BAHRAIN 



• Yanbual Bahr 



» Riyadh 



H E D J A Z 



Wad/ r 



AND N E J D 






Wadi Haifa 



ANGLO - EGYPTIAN 
SUDAN 



Jedda i 



t Mecca 

• At Taif 






i al-Hufuf QATAR 



TRUCIAL 
Tropic of Cancer STATES 



0 150 km 



126 




THE LEVANT 1500-2002 




0 80 km 

0 80 miles 

Pledges and Border Changes 

1920-1923 

| The Palestine Mandate, granted to Britain 

□ Separated from Palestine by Britain in 
1921, and given to the Emir Abdullah. 

□ Ceded by Britain to the French 
Mandate of Syria, 1923 



Saida 

Mediterranean 
Sea 

Haifa 



• Shubaih 

N E J D 



favored the military recruitment of the Alawi 
(Shiite) sectarians from the highlands above 
Latakia. After independence the Alawis were able 
to take control of the nationalist Baath (Renais- 
sance) Party, establishing a sectarian dictatorship 
that combined socialist ideologies imported from 
Eastern Europe with the time-honored Arab sys- 
tem of asabiyya (group solidarity). 

The French enlarged Lebanon by adding the 
districts of Tripoli, Sidon, the Biqaa Valley, and 
South Lebanon to the smaller Ottoman province, 
substantially increasing the proportion of Mus- 
lims from the Sunni and Shiite communities. 
Building on Ottoman precedents they instituted a 
constitution by which power was divided between 
the main religious groups, with Maronites retain- 
ing supreme power through the offices of presi- 
dent and commander-in-chief of the army, 
regardless of demographic changes. The division 
of power along sectarian lines was reaffirmed in 
the 1943 National Pact, which established the 



basis for rule after independence. The system 
ensured a modicum of social peace but militated 
against national development. When Palestinians 
used Lebanese territory to launch attacks against 
Israel in the 1970s the Israeli reprisals reopened 
sectarian divisions leading to widespread civil 
war (1975-82) and the fragmentation of Lebanon 
into zones controlled by rival Christian, Shiite, 
Sunni, and Druze militias. The chaos was com- 
pounded by the 1982 Israeli invasion aimed at 
expelling the Palestinians and installing a 
Maronite regime allied to Israel. While the for- 
mer objective was achieved with the expulsion of 
the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) 
from its Lebanese bases, the principal outcome of 
the invasion was the establishment of a de-facto 
Syrian hegemony and the emergence of the Shiite 
Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran — a more 
effective enemy to Israel than the Palestinians. 
The Israeli occupation of South Lebanon proved 
costly and ineffectual, provoking the government 
into making a unilateral withdrawal in 2002. 



Invasion of Lebanon 


June 1982 - September 1983 


— ► 


Israeli attacks 


- ► 


Israeli withdrawal 


— 


Israeli front line 6 June 1982 


— 


Israeli front line 
3 September 1983 


m 


Syrian forces 




Maronite forces 




Druze forces 


□ 


Lebanese forces 




UN forces 




127 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Prominent Travelers 



Ibn Battuta spent more than a 
year in the Maidive Islands, 
where, with some reluctance, he 
accepted the post of qadi 
(judge). He regarded the people 
as “ upright and pious” but 
disapproved of the way women 
were bare from the waist 
upwards. 



The pilgrimage to Mecca gave rise to a rich 
genre of travel writing. Pilgrims kept jour- 
nals of their travels or dictated their 
accounts to scribes, providing fascinating 
details about everything from food to 
architecture. 

One of the most interesting accounts is 
the Safarnama (travelogue) of the Persian 
philosopher-poet Nasir Khusraw (1004-c. 
1072), who journeyed to Cairo by way of 
Nishapur, Rayy, Lake Van, Aleppo, and 
Jerusalem. From Cairo he made two pilgrim- 
ages to Mecca before returning to Central 




Asia as the chief Ismaili dai (missionary) for 
the Fatimid Imam-caliph al-Mustansir 
(r. 1036-94). Attacked for his preaching by a 
Sunni crowd in the city of Balkh, (probably 
at the instigation of Saljuq officials) he took 
refuge in Badakhshan in the western Pamirs, 
where he spent the rest of his life under the 
protection of an Ismaili prince. The Ismailis 
of the Pamirs (located in eastern 
Afghanistan and the autonomous region of 
Gorno-Badakhshan in the former Soviet 
Republic of Tajikistan) revere him as their 
founding saint. In local legend, he not only 
converted the people to the Ismaili faith, but 
named all their villages, canonizing the 
topography of places far removed from each 
other (in the same way that Ireland’s patron 
saint is associated with regions as far apart 
as Mayo, Tipperary, Antrim, and Armagh). 
While his poems reflect the loneliness of 
exile, the rationalist temper of his philo- 
sophical writings made him acceptable to 
the communists who took over the region in 
1920 and he retains his status as a national 
hero in Tajikistan. 

The Cairo Nasir described in his book is 
a model for wise and just administration. 
The artisans are decently paid, leading to an 
improved quality of their products. The sol- 
diers are paid regularly, making them less 
likely to molest the peasants. The judges get 
good salaries, ensuring fairness and sparing 
citizens from corruption and injustice. If a 
merchant is caught cheating a customer, 
according to Nasir, “he is mounted on a 
camel with a bell in his hand and paraded 
about the city, ringing the bell and crying 
out: ‘I have committed a misdemeanor and 
am suffering reproach. Whoever tells a lie is 
rewarded with public disgrace.’” 



128 



PROMINENT TRAVELERS 



The Arabic version of the pilgrimage- 
travelogue is known as a rihla. The genre 
was devised by the Andalusian Ibn Jubair 
(1145- 1217), who wrote a famous account 
of the two-year journey he made from 
Granada, starting in February 1183, to 
Mecca. Here he spent nine months before 
returning from the Muslim Holy Land by 
way of Iraq and Acre, where he boarded a 
Genoese ship bound for Sicily. After surviv- 
ing a dramatic shipwreck in the Straits of 
Messina, he reembarked at Trapani, arriving 
safely at Granada in April 1185. Ibn Jubair’s 
narrative provides an abundance of informa- 
tion about the countries and cities through 
which he passed, and is an invaluable source 



of information about the Crusades, the state 
of navigation in the Mediterranean, and the 
political and social conditions of the times. 
It served as a model for many other narra- 
tives, most importantly the rihla of the 
greatest of all Muslim travelers, the Moroc- 
can Ibn Battuta (1304-C.1370), whose jour- 
neys took him from his native Tangier to 
China and Subsaharan Africa. Ibn Battuta 
made at least six pilgrimages to Mecca in 
the course of his travels and the earlier parts 
of his narrative conforms to the rihla genre. 
However, as his journeys became more 
extended his book grew more comprehen- 
sive, evolving into an unrivaled description 
of the known world. As with Marco Polo’s 




Nasir Khusraw's Journeys 

c. 1040 






12,000 

6,000 

3,000 

1,500 

600 

Oft 






**Sr 



SIN D 



am *rk, 






, 



s «aiv 



Peer 



129 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



equally famous travelogue, Ibn Battuta did 
not write his book himself but dictated it to 
a collaborator — in his case the Granadan 
scholar Ibn Juzay (1321-C.1356). He wrote 
down Ibn Battuta’s narrative at the behest 
of the ruler of Fez, Abu Inan 
(r. 1349-58). By the time the book was writ- 
ten the rihla genre had already become well 
established among educated people and 
questions arise (as with most other trave- 
logues) as to the reliability of some of Ibn 
Battuta’s descriptions. A modern scholar 
suggests that Ibn Juzay may have “systemat- 
ically exaggerated in the direction of fanta- 
sy tendencies which in the original work 
were certainly more moderate” and re- 
arranged some of Ibn Battuta’s itineraries 
for stylistic reasons. Scholarly quibbles, 



however, cannot detract from Ibn Battuta’s 
reputation as one of the greatest travelers of 
all time. The wealth of information he 
passed down to posterity about the world of 
his era is unparalleled. Like all great travel- 
ers, his observations tell us as much about 
his own social world as the countries in 
which he traveled. He had a sharp eye for 
detail. His curiosity takes his readers behind 
life’s obvious appearances, with every sen- 
tence underpinned by a wealth of question- 
ing: “The Chinese infidels eat the flesh of 
swine and dogs, and sell it in their markets. 
They are wealthy folk and well-to-do, but 
they make no display either in their food or 
in their clothes. You will see one of their 
principal merchants, a man so rich that his 
wealth cannot be counted, wearing a coarse 




'a 't \ 

FRANCE 



HOLY 

ROMAN 

EMPIRE 



HUNGARY 



«r CASTILE 

£ 



Granada 

Granada • 

d 



Hammadids 



Tr 0 , 



WcpfCi 



leer 



Travels of Ibn Jubair 

1183-85 



Zirids 



\ 



130 




PROMINENT TRAVELERS 



cotton tunic.” The contrast with Muslim 
societies, where textiles were highly valued 
and the fabrics worn in public an important 
indicator of wealth and social status, is 
implicit. In the empire of Mali Ibn Battuta 
admires the Africans for their devoutness, 
and especially their zeal for learning the 
Koran by heart, “They put their children in 
chains if they show any backwardness in 
memorizing it, and they are not set free until 
they have it by heart.” He disapproves, how- 
ever, of their diet and their women’s lack of 
attire: “Women go into the sultan’s presence 
not properly covered, and his daughters also 
go about naked.... Another reprehensible 
practice among many of them is the eating 
of carrion, dogs, and asses.” 




Construction of an astrolabe. 
This eleventh-century map was 
designed to establish the 
direction of Mecca — of great 
importance to Muslims at prayer. 




Journey 1325-27 
Journey 1327-41 
Disputed journeys 
Journey 1341-54 
Disputed journeys 



Moscow 



KHANATE OF THE 
GOLDEN HORDE 



Lake Baikal 



• Karakorum 



Lake Balkhash 



EMPIRE OF THE 
GREAT KHAN 



Venice < 



Astrakhan 



CHAGATAI 

KHANATE 



Constantinople 



Rome 



Khanbaliq 



Samarkand 



Granada 



Tabriz 



Tangier 



II-KHANATE 



Hangzhou 



Marrakesl 



China 



Hormuz 



iQuanzhou 



Guangzhou 



Arabian 

Peninsula 



Timbuktu 



Angkor 



Calicut 



Mogadishu . 



Malindi 
Momcasa • 



Sumatra , 



Zanzibar 



Travels of Ibn Battuta 

1325-1354 



Tfl5° rx 'v x 



r 

MALI \j enne 

'Th. 



131 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Britain in Egypt and Sudan in the 19th Century 





Cyrenaica 



Tripoli 



Egypt 
1866 vice-royalty 



Massawa 
1862-83 to Egypt 



WADAN 



SOKOTO 



BORNU 



ETHIOPIA 



Hara^ 
1874 to Egypt 



EMPIRE 



SOMALI 



Benin 



Yoruba 



KAMBA 



NANDI 



General Charles George “ Chinese ” 
Gordon (1833—85) was killed by 
the forces of the Mahdi on the 
steps of the governors house in 
Khartoum after a siege lasting five 
months. Seen by the British public 
as a Christian martyr, his death 
was avenged by Kitchener’s 
reconquest of Sudan in 1898. This 
drawing by the Victorian 
illustrator Lowes Dickenson is 
entitled “Gordon’s Last Watch.” 



British control of Egypt began with the mod- 
ernizing regime of Muhammad Ali — who was 
formally the Ottoman governor of Egypt but 
really an independent ruler — and his descen- 
dant Ismail Pasha (r. 1863-79), a passionate 
Europhile. His ambitious plans for economic 
development — including railroads and tele- 
graph and the construction of the Suez Canal 
(opened 1869) — led to national bankruptcy 
and the imposition of a foreign-managed 
financial administration. A group of native 
Egyptian army officers, supported by ulania, 
landowners, journalists, and the pan-Islamist 
activist Jamal al-Din al- Afghani (1839-97) 
were opposed to the debt-management regime 
and took control of the war ministry, forming 
a parliamentary government under the “rebel” 
minister Urabi Pasha. William Gladstone, the 
British prime minister, bombarded Alexandria 
and landed troops who defeated Urabi at the 
Battle of Tel al-Kebir. Under the British resi- 
dent Sir Evelyn Baring (later Lord Cromer), 
who held the financial reins of government, the 



Egyptian economy was managed efficiently — 
but in the imperial interest. Agricultural pro- 
ductivity improved, barrages were built to 
control the floodwaters of the Nile, and the 
railroad system was extended. Increasing 
quantities of raw cotton were grown for 
export but the British limited industrialization 
for fear of encouraging competition. 

Egyptian penetration into Sudan began in 
the 1820s, when Muhammad Ali overthrew 
the Funj sultanate as part of his bid to create 
an Egyptian empire in Africa. In 1830 Khar- 
toum on the White Nile was founded as a new 
fortified capital. Using European officers to 
command local levies and Egyptian troops, 
Muhammad Ali’s successors expanded their 
territory to the Upper Nile and equatorial 
provinces. Acting on the principles of admin- 
istrative reform that were being applied in 
Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, the Egyptians 
imposed state trading monopolies — with slave 
raids becoming state business — while stan- 
dardizing legal practice under the official 
Ottoman Hanafi code. This undercut 
the authority of local ulama (who were 
Malikis) as well as weakening local Sufi 
cults. Paradoxically this helped the 
spread of reformist tariqas including the 
Sammaniyya and Khatmiyya inspired by 
pilgrims returning from the Hijaz, 
where the reformist spirit had been 
strong since the eighteenth century. 

When the Egyptian state monopolies 
were abolished in the 1850s Europeans 
began entering Sudan to take over the 
trade in gum arabic, ostrich feathers, 
and ivory, damaging local business. 
Under pressure from Britain the govern- 
ment signed a convention abolishing the 
slave trade (1877). The ensuing resent- 
ments flared up in the great rebellion 
launched by Muhammad Ahmad. A 
shaikh of the Sammaniyya, he enjoyed a 



Ottoman Africa 

c. 1880 


□ 


French possessions 




Ottoman possessions 


□ 


African states 


- 


Tropic of Cancer 


</> 

8 9- 





132 




BRITAIN IN EYGPT AND SUDAN IN THE 19th CENTURY 




Constantino] 



Tripoli 



Bengazi 



Alexandria^ 



Muzuk 



Tropic of Cancer 



Mecca 



Suakin 



1887-90 

Italian 

occupation 



1818-66 to Egypt 

Massawa 

— * Dahlak 

t A. ls - 



Ldowa 

1896 



YEMEN 



Senna 



al-Obeid • ^ ^ 1883 



ADAI 



Magdala 

1868 



from 1862 to France 
- Djibouti 
/• a 



Lake Tana 

ETHIOPIA 



Fashoda 



Addis Ababa • 



ZANDE 



Lake 

Turkana 



British East Africa 



Lake 

Victoria 

East Africa 



INDIAN 

OCEAN 



100 miles 



Germai 



Northeast Africa 


1840-98 




Ottoman Empire, 1840 


■ 


Ottoman Vice-Royalty 
of Egypt under 
Muhammed AN, 1840 


m 


To Egypt, 1871-74 


KS 


Main area of activity 
of Sanusi Order, Islamic 
reformist movement, 
after 1856 


O 


Mahdist state, 1881-98 


— 


Northern boundary of 
Free Trade Zone 
Berlin Act, 1885 


o 


Ethiopia at its 
maximum extent under 
Menelik of Shoa 
(Menelik II), c. 1907 


■ 


Occupied by Britain, 
1882 


n 


To Italy by 1889 


□ 


To France by 1890 


m 


To Belgium 



133 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



great reputation for piety. Declaring himself to 
be the Mahdi (the Muslim messiah, widely 
expected to appear at the end of the thirteenth 
hijri century in November 1882), he roused the 
Baqqara cattle-herding tribes against the “infi- 
del” Turko-Egyptian government. Having 
annihilated a force of 8,000 levies under Hicks 
Pasha at Sheikhan, the Mahdi went on to take 
Omdurman and Khartoum. General Gordon 
(who had disobeyed his instructions to evacu- 
ate the garrison) was killed here on the steps 
of the Governor’s mansion. This left the Vic- 
torian public in Britain with a thirst for 
revenge. The Mahdi died (probably of typhus) 
six months after his triumphal entry into 
Khartoum. Under his successor, the Khalifa 
Abdullahi al-Taishi, the movement continued 
to expand southward into the Nuba Moun- 
tains and Bahr al-Ghazal regions. This 
brought many non-Muslim animists including 
the Nuer, Dinka, and others into their orbit, 
planting the seeds of future conflict. 

Having challenged and humiliated British 
power in a strategically sensitive region where 
France also had imperial designs, the Mahdist 
state was doomed. In 1898 the Khalifa’s army 
of 50,000 was massacred by an Anglo- 
Egyptian force commanded by General Her- 
bert Horatio Kitchener. The Khalifa’s spears 
and elderly rifles were no match for the new 
Gatling guns Kitchener had brought up the 
Nile in his flotilla of armored steamers. 

The defeat of the Mahdi led to more than a 
half-century of British rule under the Anglo- 
Egyptian Condominium. The Mahdi’s former 
followers — known as the Ansar, after Muham- 
mad’s original “helpers” in Medina — adopted 
the “peaceful” jihad, extending their influence 
in urban areas. In 1944 their leader Sayyid Abd 
al-Rahman, a son of the Mahdi, formed the 
Urnma Party, which remained well-disposed to 
the British while working for independence. 
The Khatmiyya formed the National Union 
Party, which favored a union with Egypt to 
counter the influence of the Ansar. Though 



the union was overwhelmingly rejected after 
the 1952 Egyptian revolution the bitter rivalry 
between the two religiously based parties per- 
sisted, opening the way for military rule under 
General Ibrahim Abbud (r. 1954-64) and later, 
under Jafar Numairi (r. 1969-85). Initially 
Numairi tried to heal the divisions between 
the Muslim north and predominantly non- 
Muslim (Christian and animist) south by 
granting limited autonomy to the Bahr al- 
Ghazal, Equatorial, and Upper Nile provinces. 
In 1983, however, Numairi radically switched 
directions, launching a campaign of total 
Islamization. He was supported by Hasan al- 
Turabi, leader of the National Islamic Front 
(the Sudanese version of the Muslim Brother- 
hood). Though overthrown in 1985 after 
becoming increasingly erratic and unstable, 
the program of Islamization continued under 
General Umar al-Bashir, who seized power 
with Turabi’s support in 1989. Turabi’s insis- 
tence on Arabizing and Islamizing the non- 
Muslim population, which was subjected to 
Islamic punishments, provoked increasing 
resistance among Southerners. Many joined or 
supported the Sudan People’s Liberation 
Movement led by Colonel Garang. The strug- 
gle between north and south, Africa’s longest- 
running civil war, has been described by a 
leading historian as a “civil war of genocidal 
proportions... with tactics that include starv- 
ing the civilian populations and forcing them 
to migrate.” [Ira Lapidus, A History of Islam- 
ic Societies , 2nd edition Cambridge, 2002, p. 
768.] Peoples adhering to African religions, 
such as the Nuer and Dinka, have been sub- 
jected to forcible conversion. Bashir used the 
NIFs program, which included purges and exe- 
cutions of non-Islamists in the top ranks of 
the army and civil service, to smash the power 
of the traditional political parties, dominated 
by the Sufi (mystical) brotherhoods. Ten years 
into the dictatorship, Turabi had served his 
purpose. In December 1999 the General oust- 
ed him in a “palace coup.” 



134 



BRITAIN IN EYGPT AND SUDAN IN THE 19th CENTURY 




PORTUGAL 



Algiers 



• Tunis 

Tunis 



• Tangier 
-n • Fez 



• Oran 



Tripoli 



Canary Is. 



Tripoli 
Ottom. Prov. 



Cyrenaica 



Fezzan 
Ottom. Prov. 

• Mourzouk 



Tropic of Cancer 



^ - ^ _ ^Berber 

/ fcwt 1884loMahdi 

/ 1885loMahdi 

DARFUR * .Khartum 

> .Se^/Gand%^> 
ElObeid ,'// ' i «0 

MAHDI’S DOMINION R r 

1881-98 _ /' % ETHIOPIA' ' 



Senegambia 
• St. Louis 
• Dakar 
Gambia 



• Timbuktu 



KANEM 



SOKOTO BORNU 

>to # 

CALIPHATE Kuka • 
^ • Kano 



YATENGA 



Port. Guinea 



WAGADUGU, 



WADAI 



J GURMA 



Samory’s 

Operations 



MAMPRUSSI 



DAGOMBA 



Freetown 
• Sierra 
Leone 



-f&BEH’S^i. 
EMPIR^- — 



Porto Novo 
LT a s os 



ADAMAWA 



irovia 



EQUATORIA 



BENIN 



LIBERIA 



Douala 

• 1884 to Ge; 
i»Kribi ( 



ZANDE 



Lome 



Fernando Poo 



Principe 
Sao Tome ? 



Rio Muni 

Libreville) 



Equator 



Lake 

Victqric 



Gabon 



• Witu 

1885-90 to Germany 

• Mombasa 
i Pemba Is. 
Zanzibar Is. 



Brazzaville 

•Leopoldvilh 



Cabinda 4 

1886-91 to Portugal 

Ambriz 

Loanda 



SOUTH ATLANTIC 
OCEAN 



LUBA 



Aldabra Is. 



LUNDA 



KAZEMI 



Comoro Is. 



Benguela 



Macamedes 



Mozambique 



LOZI 



MATABELE 

EMPIRE 



Tananarive 



German 
South -west 
Africa 

1884 German 
protectorate 



TAWANA 



Madagascar 
1885 French 
protectorate 

Tropic of Capricorn 



\jmJL 0 P° A. 



Walvis Bay 



SOUTH 
AFRICAN 
REPUBLIC 
■ J oh aunt 



Liideritz 

1883 to Germany 



Orange 



'ULULAND 



’Durban 



Cape Colony 



Cape Town 



Madeira 



Africa after the Berlin 
Conference 1885 


■ 


British possessions 


□ 


French possessions 


□ 


Ottoman possessions 


■ 


Portuguese possessions 


□ 


Spanish possessions 


□ 


German possessions 


■ 


African state 


— 


Boundary of Free Trade Zone 
(Berlin Act), 1885 



135 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



France in North and West Africa 




Africa c. 1S30 


■ 


British possessions 


□ 


French possessions 


■ 


Ottoman and Egyptian 
possessions 


□ 


Portuguese possessions 


□ 


Spanish possessions 


□ 


African states 




Major legal slave route, 
with date where known 



The French conquest of northwest Africa began 
in earnest in 1830 when the government of the 
restored Bourbon monarch, Charles X, support- 
ed by Marseille merchants with long-standing 
interests in the wool trade, invaded Algeria. 
While the French occupied Algiers and other 

coastal 
towns, the 
replacement 
of Ottoman 
power in the 
interior by 
Europeans 
provoked a 
movement of 
resistance by 
Abd al- 
Qadir, son 
of the head 
of the 

Qadiriyya, 
in alliance 
with the Sul- 
tan of 

Morocco. 
Following 
the defeat of 
the Moroc- 
can army by 
General 

Thomas-Robert Bugeaud at the Battle of Isly in 
1844, the way was opened for French coloniza- 
tion. Bugeaud destroyed orchards, crops, and 
whole villages, killing large numbers of people 
and leaving many thousands to starve. Vast areas 
of land were confiscated, with Arab and Berber 
clans displaced to make way for French and other 
European colonists. There were insurrections 
against the French throughout the nineteenth 
century culminating in a massive uprising 
crushed in 1871. Colonization of the productive 
lands of the Algerian littoral continued well into 
the twentieth century. By 1940 European settlers 



held some 2.7 million hectares, between 35 and 
40 percent of the arable land, with wine (forbid- 
den to Muslims) the dominant export. 

The cultural destruction was massive. Tradi- 
tional Islamic colleges were abolished or had their 
revenues seized, and though they were supposed 
to be replaced by French schools, only a small 
minority of Algerian Muslims benefited. Unlike 
the British, who preferred to rule their empire 
through pliant surrogates, France had a policy of 
assimilation, and though its application was lim- 
ited, it brought into being a small Francophone 
elite that identified with French civilization. In the 
1920s and 30s a nationalist movement combining 
Islamic reformers grouped around Abd al-Hamid 
bin Badis (Ben Badis) and Arab nationalists 
inspired by Messali Hajj gained ground, planting 
the seeds for the full-grown war of independence 
that erupted in the late 1950s, with support from 
the Soviet bloc, Egypt, and other Arab countries. 
In 1958 a counter-movement by French colonists 
opposed to independence toppled the government 
of the Fourth Republic and brought General de 
Gaulle to power in France. Contrary to the 
colonists’ expectations, however, de Gaulle con- 
ceded Algerian independence. After protracted 
negotiations at Evian, France recognized Algerian 
sovereignty in 1962. However, the economic, 
social, and political ties between France and Alge- 
ria remained close, with the FLN — the nationalist 
party that negotiated independence — replacing 
the French administration as a quasicolonial 
Francophone minority ruling over a majority of 
Arabic and Berber speakers. In December 1991 
the army intervened to prevent the Islamic Salva- 
tion Front (FIS) from coming to power in nation- 
al elections. More than 100,000 Algerians lost 
their lives in the ensuing civil war, which partly 
represented a struggle between a Francophone 
elite committed to Western values and the 
Islamists who claimed to possess a superior cul- 
tural legitimacy 

French colonial ambitions in Algeria spilled 



136 



FRANCE IN NORTH AND WEST AFRICA 



over into neighboring Tunisia, an autonomous 
Ottoman province that France took over pro- 
gressively after 1881. By 1945 there were some 
144,000 European settlers occupying about one- 
fifth of the cultivable land. These settlers, how- 
ever, never formed such a powerful domestic 
lobby as their counterparts in Algeria. After 
being defeated in Indo-China after the Second 
World War France conceded Tunisian independ- 
ence in 1956. The same pattern of French eco- 
nomic penetration followed by administrative 
control and colonization occurred in Morocco, 
with the important difference that the country 
retained its status as a Muslim polity under the 
Sharifian dynasty (claiming descent from the 
Prophet) that came to power in the seventeenth 
century Like the Iranian rulers of his day, the 
Moroccan Sultan was short of revenues from 
which to pay his armies. This was especially so 
after the production of one of his most valuable 
commodities, sugar, passed into European 
hands with the development of plantations in 
the Canaries and the Americas. In order to main- 
tain his hegemony over insubordinate tribes, the 
sultan mortgaged his customs revenues and bor- 
rowed heavily from French banks. When this 
provoked a revolt among the ulama the French 
intervened directly, imposing a protectorate 
(alongside a smaller one granted to Spain) in 
1912. Moroccan land was opened up to purchase 
by Europeans, who by 1953 controlled about 1 
million hectares, or 10 percent of the crop land, 
and 25 percent of orchards and vineyards 
(though Europeans formed barely 1 percent of 
the population). Unlike in Algeria and Tunisia, 
however, the dynasty was able to place itself at 
the head of the movement for independence. In 
1953 the French made Sultan Muhammad V into 
a hero by sending him into exile when he refused 
to agree to a system of dual sovereignty After 
massive protests and violence the French allowed 
the sultan to return, conceding independence in 
1956. The dynasty remains in power under Sul- 
tan Muhammad’s grandson, Muhammad VI. 

The pattern of colonial conquest followed 




Spanish A--' 
Morocco 

Casablanca • • F 

Morocco 
•Agadir -- 
• Ifni 






Tunisia 



Alexandria 






Murzuq 



French West Africa 

• Timbuktu 



i Dakar 



French Sudan 

_, N °' t3 



L. Chad 



*orfJ Guinea 
French Guinea 



Sokoto 









(LIBERL 



Kamerun 
■ Douala 



French Equatorial 
Africa f 



by nationalist revolt was repeated less starkly in 
other parts of the French empire in Africa, 
where France had economic ambitions but little 
interest in colonization. Its primary economic 
interest was to stimulate the production of cash 
crops such as peanuts, timber, and palm oil. 
The French collected taxes in cash and used 
forced labor on 
banana, cocoa, and 
coffee plantations. 

They built railways to 
transport goods front 
the interior to the 
Atlantic, destroying 
the time-honored 
camel traffic 
across the Sahara. 

African trade was 
undermined, with 
Levantine Arabs, 

Greeks, and South 
Asians taking over the 
retail trade in French 
colonies. African edu- 
cation was neglected, 
with only 3 percent of 
Africans in the French 
empire enabled to go 
to school. Nevertheless 
a small Francophone 
elite was fostered, 
which would come to 
power after independ- 
ence. In 1958 de Gaulle 
offered to France’s 
African colonies the 
choice between imme- 
diate independence or 
self-government within the French economic 
community. Only Guinea opted for immediate 
independence (a costly decision that seriously 
impaired its economic development). France’s 
remaining dependencies in West Africa 
acquired complete independence in the course 
of the 1960s. 



Northwest Africa 

to 1914 


■ 


British possessions 


□ 


French possessions 


□ 


Spanish possessions 


m 


Portuguese possessions 




Belgian possessions 


□ 


German possessions 


■ 


Italian possessions 




Independent state 



137 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Growth of the Haj j and Other Places of Pilgrimage 



The haj j is one of the five “pillars” or reli- 
gious duties that every Muslim is obliged to 
perform at least once in his or her lifetime. 
Today the duty is made comparatively easy 
by affordable air transportation. The hajj ter- 
minal at Jedda airport — a vast tented struc- 
ture spread over several acres — accommo- 




other airport terminal in the world. The hajj 
physically connects Muslims from all parts of 
the world with each other. It attracts about 
one million pilgrims from abroad each year, 
and about the same number of pilgrims from 
within Saudi Arabia (including Saudis and 



Pilgrim Routes of Arabia 

= Dumb al-Hadjdj (Pilgrim roads) 
°°°°° Diversions 
o Towns, villages 

• Mikat 



foreign residents). About 50 percent of the 
overseas pilgrims are from the Arab world, 35 
percent from Asia, 10 percent from subsaha- 
ran Africa, and 5 percent from Europe and 
the Western Hemisphere. 

The origins of the rites of the hajj are 
obscure. Shortly before his death in 632 
Muhammad took the preexisting cults of 
Mecca and its vicinity and reformed them. 
Spread over several days the reformed versions 
include the tawaf (circumambulation) around 
the Kaba, the square temple at the center of 
the sanctuary in Mecca; the say or ritual run- 
ning between the hillocks of Safa and Marwa; 
a day spent on the plain of Arafat; the 
onrush — now a massive jam of people and 
traffic — through Muzdalifa; the stoning of 
the jamarat (pillars) representing the devil at 
Mina. In reforming the pagan hajj Muham- 
mad may have redirected a series of solar, 
rainmaking, and other rituals surrounding the 
Black Stone. A mysterious “heavenly rock” or 
a meteorite, it is set in the southeastern corner 
of the Kaba toward the exclusive worship of 
Allah as revealed to the patriarch Abraham 
(Ibrahim) and his son Ishmael (Ismail), the 
mythical ancestor of the Arabs. The final act 
of the hajj, the sacrifice of an animal com- 
memorating the sheep that Allah accepted in 
place of Abraham’s son, is celebrated 
throughout the Muslim world at the Id al- 
Adha, when Muslims kill their own animals 
or consume ritually slaughtered animals at 
home. The umra (minor pilgrimage) is limited 
to the sanctuary surrounding the Kaba and 
can be performed separately at any time of 
the year or in conjunction with the hajj. 

In premodern times the journey could be 
extremely arduous, especially from distant 
peripheries. It could take many years of a 



138 




GROWTH OF THE HAJJ AND OTHER PLACES OF PILGRIMAGE 



person’s life — even a whole lifetime — to com- 
plete the “fifth pillar” of Islam. Vast moving 
caravan cities under the command of the 
Amir al-Hajj set out from Syria, Egypt, and 
Iraq. The caravan commanders were generals 
in the field. In fact, their primary duty was to 
protect the pilgrims from the attacks of the 
marauding Bedouin or (from the late eigh- 
teenth century) the tribes belonging to the 
Wahhabi-Saudi movement regarded all non- 
Wahhabis as infidels. Ibn Jubair, who made 
the pilgrimage in 1184, described the tent of 
the commander of the Iraqi caravan on the 
Plain of Arafat as resembling a “walled city” 
or “powerful fortress” with “four lofty 
gates,” through which one entered a series of 
vestibules and narrow passageways. In the 
nineteenth century the arrival of steamship 
navigation under colonial auspices, com- 
bined with the emergence of special hajj sav- 
ings clubs, placed the pilgrimage within reach 
of thousands of ordinary peasants and 
townsfolk from outlying regions such as Ben- 
gal, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies who 
could never have hoped to fulfill the religious 
duty in preindustrial times. 

A disastrous side effect of the consequent 
increase in attendance was a series of devas- 
tating cholera outbreaks. In 1865 an epidem- 
ic originating in Java and Singapore killed an 
estimated 15,000 out of 90,000 pilgrims 
before the hajj — which occurred in May — 
was over. By the following month the disease 
had spread to Alexandria, where 60,000 
Egyptians died. By November the disease 
had spread as far as New York. Quarantine 
restrictions introduced by the Ottoman and 
colonial governments shielded Egypt and 
Europe from infection, but cholera contin- 
ued to rage in the east and in the Hejaz, 
where there were eight epidemics between 
1865 and 1892. The worst of all occurred in 




1893, when almost 33,000 pilgrims out of a 
total of 200,000 perished at Jedda, Mecca, 
and Medina. The epidemics continued until 
1912, by which time the strict quarantine reg- 
ulations had finally taken hold. Compared 
with the horrors of the late nineteenth and 
early twentieth century, recent disasters to 
have afflicted the hajj, such as the deaths of 
more than four hundred mainly Indonesian 
pilgrims in the fire that broke out at Arafat 
in 2000, seem almost minor. 

Many, if not most, pilgrims supplement 
the hajj with a visit to the Prophet’s mosque 
at Medina, where Muhammad’s family, 
wives, and prominent Companions are 
buried. In 1925 the puritanical Saudi- 



32 



35 



The Quarter of Jirwal. 

The Quarter of el-Bab. 

The Quarter of esh-Shebeka. 

The Quarter of Suq es-saghir. 

The Quarter of el-Mesfala. 

The Quarter of Bab el-Umra. 

The Quarter of Shamiyya. 

The Quarter of Sueqa. 

The Quarter of Qarara. 

Huts. 

The Quarter of Rakuba. 

The Quarter of en-Naqa. 

The Quarter of al-Selemaniyya. 

The Quarter of Shib Amir. 

The Haddadin (Blacksmiths' street). 
The street el-maala. 

The Gazza quarter. 

Palace of the Grand Sherif Aun ar- 
Rafiq (1882-1905) built by his father 
Muhammed ibn Aun. 

Palace of the Grand Sherif 
Abdallah, elder brother of Aun ar- 
Rafiq. 

The Quarter of Shib el-Maulid. 

The Quarter of Suq el-lel. 

The Quarter of el-Muddaa. 
El-Merwa. 

El-masa. 

Stone Street (Zuqaq el-Hajar). 
Maulid Sittana Fatma. 

The Quarter of el-Qushashiyya. 
Es-Safa. 

The Quarter of el-Jiad (in this 
quarter are the Eqyptian Tekkiyye 
Foundation building, and the new 
Government building). 

Main Guard house. 

House of Wali (Governor) of the 
Hejaz. The Police office etc. 
Madrasah, now used as office of 
the Committee for the Aqueduct of 
Zubaydah and bureau of the Reyyis 
(Chief of the muaddhins). 

Birket Majin (pronounced Majid) 
great cistern in connection with the 
aquaduct. 

Court of Justice and dwelling house 
of the Qadhi. 

Tomb of Abu Talib (uncle of 
Muhammad). 

Water place in connection 
with aquaduct. 

Tomb of Seyyid Aqil. 

Tomb of the Saint Shikh Mahmud. 
Jebel Queqian. 

The Quarter of Maabda. 

Reservoir of water from the 
aquaduct. Several such reservoirs 
are now in all the main streets. 
Bedouin huts. 



139 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Wahhabi movement leveled all the structures 
marking these graves. Ziyara (the custom of 
visiting graves or praying at them) was 
severely restricted. According to Wahhabi 
tenets, not shared by other Sunni communi- 
ties, ziyaras amount to saint veneration or 
shirk (idolatry). The restrictions are an 
aspect of the virulently anti-Shiite orienta- 



tion of Wahhabism, which was manifested in 
the Saudi-Wahhabi attacks on the shrines of 
the Shiite imams, Ali and Hussein at Najaf, 
and Karbala in Iraq, in 1801. However, 
ziyaras to the tombs of the imams and their 
descendents are an important aspect of pop- 
ular Shiism. Some of these ziyaras are per- 
formed at all times of the year, others at spe- 




140 



GROWTH OF THE HAJJ AND OTHER PLACES OF PILGRIMAGE 



cial times in the Muslim calendar. For exam- 
ple, the ziyara of the Imam Rida in Mashhad 
is recommended in the month of Dhu al- 
Qada. Ziyaras are popular with women, 
especially to the shrines of female saints 
such as Sayyida Zainab (daughter of the 
Imam Ali) in Cairo and Sayyida Ruqayya 
(daughter of Imam Hussein) in Damascus. 
The shrine of Hussein at Karbala is visited 
on Thursday evenings, but especially at the 



annual festival of Ashura (the day of his 
martyrdom) when thousands of Shiite pil- 
grims from all over the world congregate at 
the mosque surrounding his tomb. Other 
Muslim saints have shrines whose sanctity is 
associated with national or regional identi- 
ties. Two of the most prominent are the 
shrines of Moulay Idris (founder of the 
Idrisid dynasty) at Fez in Morocco and 
Amadu Bamba (c. 1850-1927) in Senegal. 




• Moscow 



BELARUS 



BerlinVs POI 



UKRAINE 



GEOI GIA" 

:KEY 



Peking 

(Beijing) 



KOREA 



AFGH. 



Shanghai 



Midway 



INDIA 



Calcutta 



Hong Kong 



BURMA 



Mariana 



PHIL1 



VIETNAM 



CAM. 



NIGERIA 



MALA 1 



GABON 



CONGO 



Solomon Is. 



ANGOLA 



ZAMBI 



Coral St 



NAMIBIA 



• Brisbane 



SOUTH 

AFRICA 



• Sydney 



Cape Town 



Melbourne 



141 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Expanding Cities 




Basra 

Gate 



500 yards 



Baghdad 

Founded in ad 762 by Abu Jafar al-Mansur, the 
second Abbasid caliph, the city of Baghdad was 
originally built on the west bank of the Tigris 
River. 

Although its original name was Madinat 
al-Salam (City of Peace), Baghdad was more 
popularly known as the Round City from the 
circular walls surrounding it. The caliph’s 
palace and the grand mosque stood at 
the center, with four roads radi- 
ating outward. Towering 
above the palace was 
the Green Dome, 
standing nearly 
165 feet high, 
topped by a 
mounted 
horseman. 
As Baghdad 
gradually 
spread 
beyond the 
original walls 
to the east bank 
of the Tigris, the 
two halves were 
joined by a bridge of 
boats. The eastern section 
was called Rusafa. 

Baghdad reached the height of its commer- 
cial prosperity and cultural power during the 
eighth and ninth centuries. Under the rule of 
the caliphs al-Mahdi and Harun al-Rashid, it 
stood at the nexus of the trade routes between 
the East and West linking Asia with Europe. Its 
impressive buildings and magnificent gardens 
gave it the reputation of the richest and most 
beautiful city in the world. 

In the latter half of the ninth century, the 
Abbasid caliphs’ power was weakened by inter- 
nal strife leading to civil war. When the Mon- 
gols invaded Baghdad in the thirteenth century, 



the caliph was murdered along with thousands 
of his subjects. Whole quarters were destroyed 
by looting and fire. The irrigation system on 
which the city and its gardens depended was 
wrecked, adding dramatically to the city’s 
decline. By the time Baghdad became part of 
the Ottoman Empire in 1534 it had suffered 
obscurity and neglect for several centuries. 

Improvements were made on a modest scale 
at the beginning of the twentieth century with 
the building of schools and hospitals. The oil 
boom of the 1970s brought increased wealth to 
Baghdad and the city began to develop on a 
much more impressive scale, with the construc- 
tion of middle-class residential areas. New sew- 
ers and water lines were laid and above ground 
a network of superhighways was constructed, 
as well as a new airport. Eleven bridges con- 
nected the two halves of the city, many of which 
were subsequently destroyed by US bombing in 
2003. Tahrir Square, standing on the river’s left 
bank at one end of the Jumhuriyyah Bridge, is 
now the heart of the city from which its main 
streets radiate. 

Under the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hus- 
sein a number of massive monuments were con- 
structed, including the notorious “Victory 
Arch”, a vast confection in bronze actually 
modeled from maquettes of Saddam Hussein’s 
forearms. An altogether more impressive exam- 
ple of recent monumental art is the Shahid 
(Martyrs’) Monument commemorating the 
dead of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88). Designed 
by Ismail Fattah, it consists of a vast onion- 
dome vertically sliced into two sections and 
glazed with traditional blue ceramic tiles. Apart 
from these monuments most of the improve- 
ments to Baghdad were brought to a halt by the 
war with Iran in the 1980s, the Gulf War that 
followed Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and the UN 
sanctions imposed afterward. The major excep- 
tions to this story of renewed decline were the 
presidential palaces, actually vast compounds 



142 



EXPANDING CITIES 



surrounded by high walls or fences, containing 
Saddam’s lavishly decorated residential villas 
for visiting dignitaries set beside artificial lakes. 
Before the removal of the Iraqi Baathist regime 
by US military action in March 2003 access to 
these sites by UN weapons inspectors had been 
a major source of contention between the 
regime and the United Nations. 




Jazirat al-Fil 



cemetery 



Qayt-Bay Qarafa 
cemetery 



tomb of 
Imam Shafi 



0 500 m 

0 500 yds 



Cairo 

Cairo, which comes from the Arabic word 
al-Qahira, meaning the victorious, takes its 
name from the city founded by a brilliant gen- 
eral Jawhar al-Siqilli. A slave of Sicilian, possi- 
bly Slav, origin he conquered Egypt in 969 on 
behalf of his master, the Fatimid Caliph al- 
Muizz. Like the previous conquerors he staked 
out a separate garrison city for his troops, 
north of the city, al-Fustat, founded by the 
Arabs, who had conquered Egypt in 642. The 
Fatimid city, with its palaces, schools, and 
mosques, includes al-Azhar, the world’s oldest 



university. Cairo was founded by Jawhar in 970. 
Later it was embellished by the mamluk amirs, 
who built hundreds of mosques, tombs, inns, 
hospices, hospitals, and other public buildings. 
Their distinctive decorative style made use of 
the same Muqattam limestone as the pyramids 
of Giza (and in some cases, using the pyramids’ 
outer casings). Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (Saladin) 

who took over 
after the collapse 
of the Fatimids, 
built the magnif- 
icent citadel to 
the south where 
Muhammad Ali, 
the nineteenth- 
century reform- 
ing autocrat, 
constructed the great Ottoman-style mosque 
that still commands the old city. 

The earliest settlement in this crucial spot on 
the east bank of the Nile, opposite the 



Cairo at the time of 
Sultan al-Nasir 


■ 


Densely settled walled city 


□ 


Well-populated sections 
outside the walls 


■ 


Newer sections being 
opened to settlement 


— 


Road 


— 


Wall 




0 1000 m 

0 ' 1000 yds 



Cairo at the time of 
Ismail 1869-1870 

J Old city 

= Added by Ismail 

. _ _ Planned new arteries 
for old city 

= Railways 



143 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 




Growth of Cairo 


1800 - 


1947 


Ea 


Developed before 1800 


□ 


Added upto1905 


□ 


Added up to 1915 


DH 


Added up to 1925 


■ 


Added up to 1935 


■ 


Added up to 1947 



pyramids, was Babylon (now Misr al-Qadima), 
a fortress built by the invading Persians in 525 
BC to guard an important crossing of the Nile. 
The city’s steady northward migration (which 
continued into the twentieth century with the 
construction of the desert suburb of Heliopo- 
lis) was influenced by the prevailing northerly 
breezes, which sent the smells of ordure and 
burning rubbish southward. Before the nine- 
teenth century the city’s westward expansion 
was limited by the river’s floodplains. The 
Mamluk amirs and Ottoman princes built fine 
palaces with vast palm-shaded gardens while 
most of the populace lived in labyrinthine 
streets and alleyways contained within the 



medieval walls of al-Qahira. The European- 
style city of fine boulevards and circuses was 
laid out in the 1860s in conscious imitation of 
Baron Haussmann’s redesigned Paris. Improved 
flood control and the stabilization of the river- 
banks and the two large islands of Rawdah and 
Gezirah allowed the city to expand across the 
river toward Giza and Imbaba. This makes 
modern Cairo (with 18-20 million people) one 
of the world’s largest megalopolises. 

Tashkent 

Until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 
Tashkent, with a population of 2.3 million, was 
the fourth-largest Soviet city after Moscow, 



144 




EXPANDING CITIES 




Tashkent 

(M) Metro station 
(T) Internet access 



Leningrad, and Kiev. Much of it was destroyed 
by an earthquake in 1966, which wrecked 
95,000 homes and left 300,000 people (one- 
third of its population) homeless. Rebuilt as a 
model Soviet city, it has broad boulevards, wide 
public spaces with splashing fountains, and 
rows of concrete office and apartment build- 
ings in the international modernist style, 
though it retains traditional Uzbek motifs and 
arcades, and galleries with open verandas, 
mosaics, and paneling. The city has spacious 
parks and a modern underground railway sys- 
tem. After Uzbekistan became independent in 
1992 the Russians, who formed about half of 
the population, were reported to be leaving at 
the rate of 700 a week. However, Russian is still 
spoken by at least half of Tashkent’s citizens. 

Before the reconstruction there were two 
distinct cities, the old Islamic city and the 
modern Russian one, separated by a canal. 
Some of the labyrinthine streets and alleyways 
of Old Tashkent, with traditional homes built 
around pleasant vine-shaded 
courtyards, survived the 
earthquake. Tashkent is the 
most recent of several names 
given to the old city, origi- 
nally an oasis settlement for 
nomads and traders on the 
Chirchik River, a tributary 
of the Syr Darya. When the 
Arabs defeated a Chinese 
army at the Battle of Talas 
in 751 the settlement was 
known as Chach, Arabized 
to al-Shash. Arab writers 
described it as a prosperous 
place of vineyards, teeming 
with bazaars and busy 
craftsmen. Tashkent, mean- 
ing “stone-town” in the local 
Turkic languages, first 
appears on coins in the 
Mongol period. Though 
sacked by the Mongols, the 



city recovered some of its previous prosperity 
under Timur and his successors. Contested by 
successive rulers, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Persians, 
Mongol Oirots, and Kalmyks, it nevertheless 
maintained a degree of autonomy. In the eigh- 
teenth century it was divided into four, some- 
times mutually hostile, quarters sharing a 
common bazaar. Conquered by the Russians 
in 1865, its population had almost tripled 
(from 56,000 to 156,000) by the time the 
Transcaspian Railway reached Tashkent in 
1898. The Soviet period saw intensive industri- 
alization and the expansion of residential 
quarters with generous parks and gardens. 
Mosques, madrasas, and other religious build- 
ings were either destroyed, or converted into 
factories, warehouses, or printing presses. 
Since independence the whole city has been 
reasserting its Islamic character, with large 
brightly domed mosques being constructed 
alongside modern shopping malls and arcades 
stocked with goods from Southeast Asia. 



145 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Impact of Oil in the 20th Century 



An oil refinery plant in Saudi 
Arabia. Approximately 95 
percent of the world’s oil has 
been produced by about 5 
percent of its oilfields, two-thirds 
of which are located in western 
Asia, Saudi Arabia being the 
world’s largest producer. 



The impact of oil and natural gas has been a 
mixed blessing for the Muslim societies of 
western Asia and particularly the Gulf 
region (including Iraq), which contains 
between 60 and 65 percent of the world’s 
proven oil reserves. On the one hand it has 
enabled the oil-bearing countries to build 
impressive modern cities with high-rise 
buildings, shining shopping malls, six-lane 
highways, state-of-the-art communications 



-A 




systems, and other trappings of modernity. It 
has enabled Saudi Arabia, once one of the 
world’s poorest and least developed coun- 
tries, to provide impressive health-care and 
education systems for its population (includ- 
ing the formerly secluded female half). On 
the other hand, it has added to the region’s 
instability by consolidating the power of 



tribal oligarchies whose control of the oil 
has enabled them to govern by a combination 
of patronage and repression. 

The most conspicuous example of the dis- 
astrous effects of oil dependency was seen in 
Iraq, where the network of kinship con- 
trolled by Saddam Hussein extended itself 
through every branch of society after the 
nationalization of oil in 1972. The group 
controlled the distribution of land (confis- 
cated front old regime landowners or politi- 
cal opponents) licenses for setting up busi- 
nesses (including arms imports), foreign 
exchange, and labor relations. Its coercive 
power was reinforced through the ubiquitous 
mukhabarat (intelligence services), which 
acquired a fearsome reputation for torture 
and extra-judicial killing. Iraq was an 
extreme example, but the same considera- 
tions apply to most of the big oil-producing 
Arab states where a single ruling family exer- 
cises power through a network of patron- 
client relationships and is freed from the 
constraints exercised by elected bodies of 
tax-paying citizens. Oil also frees the rulers 
from the need to democratize their societies 
by placing the industries on which they 
depend in the hands of nonenfranchised for- 
eign workers and administrators. The elec- 
torate for the Kuwaiti parliament, for exam- 
ple, is restricted to males from families resi- 
dent before 1959 — meaning that only 80,000 
out of a potential 600,000 Kuwaiti men (not 
to mention the foreigners who constitute 
between 70 and 85 percent of the workforce) 
are eligible to vote. Even with such a restrict- 
ed franchise the ruling family has at times 
found parliament unacceptably critical, dis- 
solving it between 1976 and 1981 and 1986 
and 1992. At the same time full Kuwaiti citi- 



146 



IMPACT OF OIL IN THE 20th CENTURY 



zens (whose average per capita income in 1998 
amounted to more than $22,000 per annum) 
are able to enjoy an extensive cradle-to-grave 
welfare system, with state utilities, health 
care, housing, telecommunications, and edu- 
cation all heavily subsidized by the state. 

The political volatility of the Gulf region, 
demonstrated by three major wars since 1980, 
has stimulated the search for oil in other 
Muslim regions, notably Central Asia and the 
Caspian. The post-Soviet states of Azerbaijan, 



Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan 
have promising oil reserves, but cannot export 
their oil without sending it through pipelines 
that pass through neighboring countries. The 
most economical route from Turkmenistan and 
Azerbaijan would run though Iran to the Gulf 
using Iran’s existing network of pipelines. This 
route, however, has been opposed for political 
reasons by the US, which favors a much more 
expensive project running to Ceyhan on 
Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. 




UKRAINE 



.MOLDOVA 



Lake 

Balkhash 



Caspian 

Sea 



Novorosisk 



Chechnyj 



Xinjiang 



Abkhazia 



Turfan 



1YRGYZSTAN 



Istanbul 



Tarim 

Basin 



Ankara 



TAJIKISTAN 



i Tehran’ 



Kabul 



SYRIA 



Mediterranean 

Sea LEBANON 



AFGHANISTAN 



Baghdad 



'Lahore 



Alexandria 



ISRAEI 



KUWAIT 



Cairo 



PAKISTAN 



Dhahran. 



BAHRAIN 

1QATAR 



Karachi 



Riyadh 



Ahmadabad 



Arabian 

Sea 



BANGLADEJ 



Khartoum 



ERITREA 



SUDAN 



Bangalore • 



Madras 



>JIBOUTI 



Addis 

Ababa 



300 miles 



IGANDA 





ARAB 




INDIA 


\ [ 




EMIRATES ftJp 


Bombay • 


Hyderabad 


BURMA 



Oilfields and Pipelines 

in the Middle East and Inner Asia 

& Oil and gas reserves 
' Principal projects for oil and gas lines 

90 ° 



147 





HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Water Resources 



Water and its scarcity have had a determining 
impact on the core regions of the Islamic world. 
In ancient Egypt many centuries of human expe- 
rience in ordering the flow of the Nile’s annual 
flood through complex systems of basin irriga- 
tion lay behind the finely calibrated geometry of 
the pyramids. In Mesopotamia, as in Egypt, the 
state, with its bureaucratic structures of power 
and control, was the gift of the river. In Arabia 
the aridity of the land and the value of water is 
fundamental to the language of Islam. In the 
Koran the rare and precious rain that makes the 
desert bloom overnight is one of the ayas (signs 
or proofs) of God, a metaphor for the resurrec- 
tion. “...for among His signs is this: thou seest 
the earth lying desolate — and lo! When We send 
down water upon it, it stirs and swells [with life] 
Verily, He who brings to life can surely give life to 
the dead ... for behold! He has the power to do 
anything!” (Koran 41:39). The root meaning of 
Sharia — the divine law — is the way or path to a 
watering place, the source of life and purity An 
eighteenth-century Arabic dictionary likens the 
Sharia to the “descent of water” that quenches 
man’s thirst and purifies him through fasting, 
prayer, pilgrimage, and marriage. Water man- 
agement was fundamental to the success and 
failure of Islamic governments in the past. In the 
Upper Euphrates region the early Abbasid rulers 
restored and extended the system of underwater 
channels built by the Sasanians, bringing new 
lands under cultivation. Neglect of irrigation in 
subsequent centuries hastened the dynasty’s eco- 
nomic and political decline. 

Water management was central to the 
development of modern Egypt. Under the dynasty 
of Muhammad Ali the first barrages were built to 
control the Nile floods, bringing new lands under 
cultivation and releasing the floodplain between 
Cairo and Gizeh for a new European-style city of 
circuses with radiating boulevards. Ganial Abd al- 
Nasser, the charismatic nationalist leader who 
overthrew the monarchy in 1952, precipitated the 



1956 Suez crisis by nationalizing the Suez Canal 
after the US refused to finance the High Dam at 
Aswan. Built with Soviet help, the dam at the head 
of Lake Nasser now controls the river by storing 
its floodwaters in what is now the world’s largest 
artificial reservoir. Some experts consider the 
High Dam to have been a long-term ecological 
disaster. The dam has stopped the river from 
bringing the rich nutrients from the tropical 
regions, increasing the salinity of the soil, and 
reducing fish stocks in the eastern Mediterranean. 
Dams built by Turkey on the Euphrates have been 
no less contentious. The Keban (1975) and 
Karakaya (1987) dams, each designed to store 
about 30 million cubic kilometers of water to gen- 
erate electricity and to regulate the river’s flow, 
were partly financed with loans from the World 
Bank. However the World Bank refused to con- 
tribute to the larger Ataturk Dam, which has a 
storage capacity of 46 cubic kilometers, because 
the downstream riparians, Syria and Iraq, failed 
to approve the project. The dams and associated 
irrigation projects have reduced the flow of the 
Euphrates by almost half, from some 30 million to 
just below 16 million cubic meters per year. In 
defense of its action Turkey argues that the aver- 
age use of the flow by Syria and Iraq has never 
exceeded 15 cubic kilometers per year — so neither 
need suffer. Turkey is also developing the Tigris 
through a series of projects that may lead to 
reductions in flow, but improvements in reliability 
Iraq is the main beneficiary of the Tigris. Any 
shortfall affecting the Euphrates as a result of 
Turkish engineering could be made good by devel- 
oping the Tigris waters. 

Nowhere is the highly charged issue of water 
management more apparent than in discussions 
about sharing the waters of the Jordan River, cen- 
tral to the Arab-Israeli dispute. The peace treaty 
between Israel and Jordan signed in October 1994 
included the provision of a phased 200 million 
cubic meters of water per year for Jordan, to be 
allocated partly from current Israeli sources and 



148 



WATER RESOURCES 



partly from joint development. During the pre- 
liminary negotiations between Israel and the 
Palestinians, known as Oslo (1993) and Oslo II 
(1995), water was included as one of five crucial 
issues along with territory, Jerusalem, Jewish set- 
tlements, and refugees. With the continuing 
intifada (uprising) and the breakdown of the so- 
called “road map to peace” sponsored by the US, 
the UN, the European Union, and Russia, the 
issue remains unresolved. However the very fact 
that the sharing of water could have been part of 
the negotiations illustrates an important truth: 
the principal water resource for the Israeli, 
Palestinian, Syrian, and Jordanian economies, 
both at present and in the future, lies outside the 
region in the form of “virtual water.” 

“Virtual water” is a concept used by econo- 
mists and hydrologists to indicate the quantities of 
water needed to produce imported foods, such as 
wheat from water-rich regions like North 
America. Every ton of wheat or similar food com- 
modity requires approximately one thousand 
times its volume in water to produce it. Judging by 
the rate of cereal imports into western Asia and 
North Africa, the region has been “running out” 
of water since the 1970s. This has not, however, 
led to starvation. By importing wheat and other 
staples from regions where soil water and soil 
moisture are high the countries of the region have 
subsisted by means of the “virtual water’” embed- 
ded in the staples they import. According to this 
analysis, it is cheaper and much more sensible to 
import food measured in terms of “virtual water” 
than to produce it locally For example, Saudi 
Arabia is using fossil water from nonrenewable 
aquifers to grow wheat in considerable quantities. 
It is now the world’s sixth-largest exporter of cere- 
als. But the cost is prohibitive. In 1989 Saudi farm- 
ers were being paid $533 per ton to produce wheat 
available for $120 on the world market. The glob- 
al trading system in grain can deliver 40,000 mil- 
lion cubic meters of virtual water embedded in 
grain imports without visible stress. No engineer- 
ing system could mobilize one-tenth of that 
amount with the same degree of flexibility 




149 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



The Arms Trade 



The main elements of modern armed forces are 
the types of weapon used, the sources of supply 
of weaponry, and the organization of people to 
use these weapons. The armed forces of states 
with a mostly Islamic population have few char- 
acteristics that distinguish them as Islamic. 

All of these states have organized armed forces 
staffed by full-time personnel. They are arranged 
on a system of military structures developed in 
Europe in the eighteenth century and adapted to 
modern equipment including aircraft. For exam- 
ple, the term squadron was used historically to 



Islamic states have created elite units closely asso- 
ciated with the rulers of the country as seen in 
Iran’s revolutionary guards (the Pasdaran Inqilab) 
or Royal Forces in Jordan, but this too is a cross- 
cultural practice. 

The types of weapons system include 
armored vehicles, planes, ships, missiles, and in a 
few cases chemical and nuclear weapons. All of 
these types of weapon had been developed in a 
form recognizable today by the industrial powers 
in the Second World War. 

All of the Islamic states form part of the 



Shaheen 1, Pakistan’s surface-to- 
surface missile, can carry any 
type of warhead, including a 
nuclear device, up to 434 miles 
(700 kilometers). This picture 
was taken in October 2003, at a 
time when peace talks with India 
over the disputed territory of 
Kashmir were apparently stalled. 




describe small groups of ships or cavalry and then 
was applied to aircraft. Uniforms too have a 
strongly European design. The armed forces of all 
states are infused with the culture that creates 
them and those in Islamic states are no exception. 
Thus Islamic traditions can be found in the styles 
and heraldry of units. Some states, notably the 
smaller states in the Gulf, make extensive use of 
mercenaries. However, this is an age-old cross- 
cultural practice still found elsewhere in, for 
example, the UK’s units of Nepalese Ghurkhas 
and the French Foreign Legion. Similarly, some 






' LUX- CZECH. 

GER. SLO. 



WESTERN 

SAHARA 




MAURITANIA 



IVORY 
LIBERIA COAST 



.IBERIA 



TOGO 

BENIN 



NIGERIA CENTRAL 

AFRICAN 
& REPUBLIC 

■ H WuL 






n 



GABON ^ 



150 



THE ARMS TRADE 



developing world. None has an advanced indus- 
trial base, which means that all their major 
weapons systems have to be imported. The 
exceptions to this are twofold. First, rifles, pis- 
tols, their ammunition, and other small-scale 
weapons are produced in abundance. Second, a 
few states with powerful allies, notably 
Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt, have been given 
some assistance in developing a manufacturing 
industry for weapons. Pakistan is thought to 
have obtained technical assistance for its 
nuclear program from China. 

In common with the vast majority of states, 
Islamic nations from Morocco to Indonesia are 



nowadays mostly within the orbit of the US. 
Consequently such states tend to train and 
organize along US lines. This is continuing to 
replace earlier British, French, and Russian 
influence except in the cases of Syria and 
Libya, where Soviet era weapons and organiza- 
tion are quite noticeable. Iran is perhaps excep- 
tional in developing an independent center of 
military practice, but this is still in a weak and 
early stage of development. Some members of 
the Iranian government have proclaimed 
nuclear weapons un-Islamic. While similar sen- 
timents are expressed in Christian countries, it 
is rare to find them inside government. 




UKRAINE 



MOLDOVA 



ROMANIA 



BULGARIA 



ieorg! 



KYRGYZ. 



TURKM 



:orea 



TURKEY 



S. KOREA 



AFGHAN. 



ISRAEL 1 



IRAN 



EGYPT 



TAIWAN 



BANGLADESH 



BURMA 



Hainan 



Luzon 



THAI. 



SUDAN 



CAMB. 



SRI 

LANKA 



ETHIOPIA 



IANDA 



KENYA 1 



Borneo 



Sulawesi 



Sumatra 



TANZANIA 



Jakarta * 



Mindanao 



Military Spending and Service c. 2000 


■ 


7 % or more j 


^ More than 2 years 


□ 


5 % -6.9% 1 


1-2 years 


□ 


3% -4.9% 


r 6 months- 1 year 


m 


1 % - 2.9% " 

f 


| Up to 6 months 


■ 


Less than 1% Ji' 


■i 


No data \ 


| Voluntary military service 



151 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Flashpoint Southeast Asia 1950—2000 



Young girls in Acheh, Indonesia, 
learning the Koran. Historically a 
center of Muslim resistance to 
Dutch colonial rule, Acheh is the 
only Indonesian province where 
the Sharia has been reintroduced 
as the basis of public law. 



The late 1940s and 50s saw the emergence of a 
diverse set of nations in Southeast Asia. At present, 
the region is comprised of the Republic of 
Indonesia, the Federation of Malaysia, and the 
Sultanate of Brunei, where Muslims are a majority, 
and the Republics of Singapore and the Philippines, 
Myanmar (the Socialist Republic of the Union of 
Burma), the Kingdom of Thailand, the Lao People’s 
Democratic Republic (Laos), the People’s Republic 
of Kampuchea (Cambodia), and the Socialist 
Republic of Vietnam, where Muslims are minorities. 



flicts between Muslims and Christians broke out on 
the eastern Indonesian islands of Maluku and 
South Sulawesi. In October 2002, bombs (allegedly 
planted by members of the international terrorist 
group al-Qaeda) exploded in a nightclub on Bali, 
leaving 202 people dead and 300 people injured. 

Malaysia gained its independence in 1957 and 
formed a federation between Malaya, Singapore, 
Sabah, and Sarawak. Singapore seceded from the 
federation in 1966 and espouses a multiethnic reli- 
gious policy of governance. In contrast, Islam is the 




Muslim involvement in the formation and develop- 
ment of a number of these nations over the past fifty 
years has been diverse. It has been punctuated, in 
part, by a series of flashpoints involving Muslims of 
different orientations and aspirations. 

The formation of the Republic of Indonesia in 
1949-50 saw uprisings (1948 and 1953) of many 
Muslims in western Java, South Sulawesi, and 
Acheh (northern Sumatra), whose leaders disagreed 
about the decision to limit the role of Islam in the 
new republic. In recent years, Indonesia has seen a 
series of local, regional, and international conflicts 
involving Muslims. Between 1999 and 2000, con- 




Jakarta 
* (Batavia) 



* 

1945-49 



And 

Se 



152 




FLASHPOINT SOUTHEAST ASIA 1950-2000 



state religion of Malaysia. Since before its founding, 
there were recurrent tensions in Malaysia between its 
Chinese and Malay populations, which erupted into 
the race riots that took place in 1969. Insofar as 
Malays are Muslim and constitute a majority, such 
intercommunal conflicts have a religious dimension. 
But Malaysia is also witness to intracomnuuial ten- 
sions in which Muslims continue to debate the nature 
and extent of Islam’s role in the matters of governance. 

In the Philippines, Muslims (often referred to as 
Moros) reside mostly on Mindanao and the Sulu 
archipelago. The early 1970s saw Muslims calling 
for separation from the Philippine state and the 



establishment of an autonomous homeland for 
Philippine Muslims. Successive Philippine govern- 
ments have attempted to broker settlements with 
Muslims in the region. Muslims in Thailand are pri- 
marily located in Satun in northwestern Thailand, 
and the southern provinces of Pattani, Yola, and 
Narithiwat, which border Malaysia. Muslim resist- 
ance to the Thai state in the form of armed strug- 
gles and separatist calls reached their climax in the 
1990s. Muslims in Myanmar (Burma) mostly reside 
in Arakan on the Myanmar border with 
Bangladesh, and since the 1950s have been in con- 
tinual conflict with Myanmar about their status. 



Hainan 
Ho China) 



v 'iva South Chi 




130 “ 



136 “ 






1 


New States in Southeast 


1 


Asia 




1 


1950-2000 




1 1949 1 


Date of independence 






Independence war 


1 


* 


Post colonial and separatist 






conflicts 



P A C 



IFIC OCEAN 



nalmahera 



Ambon* 



Seram 



1 



T 



• Bandanera 

S I 



Banda Sea 



$ 



V 3 



Flores Sea 

„ .. .s ^ 

Bali 

$ Ww "" Flores Annexed by Indonesia 1976 

>° *• 



Timor 



1963 lo Indonesia 

A 



g i s m a r c 
Sea 



v A P 13 6 
GU1N eA 

14 



» * 




I 



***** 



Timor Sea 



Arafura Sea 



Cape 



Cora 
York Sea 




■l 



V 



153 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Flashpoint Iraq 1917—2003 



Like the majority of Arab states, Iraq became 
an independent state after the breakup of the 
Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World 
War. From its beginnings it faced problems in 
creating an integrated sense of national identi- 
ty. Though ruled by Ottoman governers adher- 
ing to the Sunni tradition, the majority of the 
Arab population (about 60 percent) were 
Shiites with strong religious and cultural ties to 
neighboring Iran, where Shiism has been the 



Mesopotamia 1915-18 




British river-borne operations 


— ► 


other British operations 




British retreat 


— ► 


Turkish advance 


- 


Turkish retreat 


A 


Oilfield 


— 


Oil pipeline 




Approximate extent of areas 
inundated during the wet 
season 




state religion since the sixteenth century. About 
one-quarter of the population (based mainly in 
the north) was Kurdish. During the last years of 
Ottoman rule a movement for autonomy 
fueled by Arab nationalist sentiment had devel- 
oped among Ottoman army officers and urban 
notables. When Britain, which had captured 
Baghdad in 1917 and installed a military gov- 
ernment based in Basra, was awarded a man- 
date for Iraq at the San Remo Conference in 
1920, it faced a series of revolts by Ottoman 
officials, landowners, tribal chiefs, Sunni and 
Shiite ulama, and army officers. The British 
response was to establish a constitutional 
monarchy under Faisal ibn Hussein, son of the 
Sharif of Mecca whom the French had removed 
from his throne in Damascus. The British man- 
date ended in 1932 when Iraq was admitted to 
the League of Nations, but Britain retained its 
airbases at Shuaiba and Habbaniyya, and a 
controlling interest in the IPC (Iraqi Petroleum 
Company), which started exporting oil in 
1934. Though the Iraqi elite was included in the 
government it remained divided between differ- 
ent factional and tribal interests, while the 
troubles in Palestine caused by Jewish immi- 
gration fueled nationalist sentiments and anti- 
British feelings. A pro-Axis coup d’etat by a 
group of nationalist officers known as the 
Golden Square led to a second British occupa- 
tion of Baghdad and Basra in 1941. 

The tensions caused by the 1956 Suez crisis 
and Iraq’s adherence to the pro-Western 
Baghdad Pact (including Turkey, Iran, and 
Pakistan) aimed at containing Soviet power 
surfaced in the revolution that, with commu- 
nist support, overthrew the monarchy in 
1958. However the new military government 
was itself replaced in 1963 (and again in 
1968) by officers belonging to the secular- 
oriented Baath (Renaissance) Party. Under 
Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti (vice president to 
General Hasan al-Bakri and the regime’s 



154 




FLASHPOINT IRAQ 1917-2003 



effective “strong man” long before he formal- 
ly assumed the presidency in 1979) the al-Bu 
Nasr clan from Tikrit effectively used the East 
European-style Baath Party apparatus to 
build a formidable network of power based 
on a combination of patronage and coercion. 
The regime proved remarkably durable. It 
took steps toward creating a sense of Iraqi 
national identity based on the Arab-Muslim 
and pre-Islamic Mesopotamian heritage, with 
archaeology, folklore, poetry, and the arts 
enlisted to enhance Iraqi distinctiveness. The 
Kurds were ruthlessly suppressed, with some 
1,000 villages destroyed and thousands of 
civilians killed by chemical gas. The Shiite for 
the most part supported the government dur- 
ing the disastrous war with Iran (1980-89), 
although there was significant opposition 
from the Dawa movement founded by the 
murdered Ayatollah Baqr al-Sadr in the 1960s. 
After coalition forces drove the Iraqis out of 
Kuwait in 1991, a Shiite rebellion in a number 
of southern cities including Basra, Najaf, and 
Karbala was ruthlessly suppressed — despite 
the presence of US forces in the area. In its 
drive to stamp out the last vestiges of opposi- 
tion the government then proceeded to drain 
the southern marshlands inhabited by the 
Shiite. The Kurds, however, were protected by 
Allied air power. 

Contrary to expectations, the UN sanctions 
imposed on Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait 
merely served to strengthen the regime’s pur- 
chase over Iraqi society, enriching the networks 
controlled by Saddam Hussein and his sons 
through the monopoly they obtained over ille- 
gal oil exports and the UN-approved “oil for 
food” program. The destruction of the regime 
following the Anglo-American attack on Iraq in 
March 2003 was completed with the capture of 
Saddam Hussein in December. It was far from 
clear, however, if the Americans would succeed 
in their stated purpose of installing a democ- 
ractic system of government acceptable to all 
sections of the Iraqi population. 




0 100 km 

6 ito miles 



The Gulf War, Phase 1 

17 January to 23 February 1991 



| [ Iraqi units 

Allied movements 
Iraqi airbase destroyed 
Bridge destroyed 



Persian Gulf 




The Gulf War, 
Phase 2 

24-26 February 1991 

Allied units 
| j Iraqi units 
Allied 

movements 
Iraqi airbase 
v '— ' destroyed 




The Gulf War, 
Phase 3 

27 February 1991 

| Allied units 

units 

Allied movements 

/S?s Iraqi airbase 
TU 7 destroyed 



Advance lines 
with timing 

Iraqi retreat 



iss 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Afghanistan 1840—2002 




An Afghan mujahid ( warrior ) 
carries a shell to the front line. 

Later these fighters would 
receive the Stinger Surface-to-Air 
missiles. This weapon, though 
light and portable, contained 
sophisticated target- seeking 
electronics. Secretly supplied to 
the mujahidin via the Pakistani 
intelligence services (1S1), it had 
a devastating impact on the 
Soviet occupation, enabling 
relatively untrained tribesmen to 
bring down helicopter gunships. 



A mountainous region with deep valleys, 
deserts, and arid plateaus, Afghanistan has 
never been a single political entity although 
parts of it were incorporated into the Pushtun 
Empire founded by Ahmad Shah Durrani (r. 
1747-72). The population is extremely varied, 
with that largest ethnolinguistic grouping, the 
Pushtuns, comprising about 47 percent. This 
group is concentrated in the southern belt of 
the territory that straddles the border with 
Pakistan, with Tajiks, the second-largest 
group (comprising 35 percent) living mainly 
in the north, along with Uzbeks, Turkmen, 
and Kirghiz (8 percent), and the Imarni Shiite 
Hazaras (7 percent). 

The disintegration of the Durrani Empire 
into fratricidal strife in the nineteenth century 
opened the way for Russian and British pene- 
tration. Britain’s concern to protect its empire 
from Russian encroachments prompted its 
two invasions of Afghanistan in 1839-42 and 

1879- 80. Needing a strong central government 
to consolidate Afghanistan as a buffer state 
against the Russians Britain installed the 
“Iron Amir,” Abd al-Rahman Khan (r. 

1880- 1901). He consolidated his power over 
the country by waging jihad against the Shiite 
and forcibly converting the indigenous non- 
Muslim “infidels” of Kafiristan. Departing 
with precedent he claimed to rule by divine 
right rather than tribal delegation. Non- 
Pushtuns were discriminated against and suf- 
fered oppressive taxation. 

Elements of the modern state, however, 
were also introduced, with a centralized army 
used to repress rebellious tribes and the gov- 
ernment organized into separate departments 
of state. During the reign of Abd al- 
Rahman’s son Habibullah (r. 1901-19) the 
army was professionalized and modern 



education introduced. Habibullah’s son 
Amanullah (r. 1919-29) pushed the process of 
modernization further by enacting sweeping 
legislative changes, including the abolition of 
slavery. He began to allow the education of 
women and brought about changes in their 
status including almost equal rights in mar- 
riage, divorce, and inheritance. He also intro- 
duced Western dress at court. The reforms 
provoked a rebellion by the conservative 
ulama and chieftains affiliated to the 
Naqshbandi order and Amanullah was forced 
into exile in 1929. 

The Pushtun military leader Nadir Shah (r. 
1929-33) took over from Amanullah and his 
successor Zahir Shah (r. 1933-73) reinstated 
the Sharia courts. He rewarded the Pushtun 
tribes on which they depended by granting 
their leaders government posts and allowing 
rampant discrimination against non- 
Pushtuns in the allocation of resources. At 
the same time the program of modernization 
was resumed in a modified form, with the 
state taking the leading part in economic 
development. Under the combined strategic 
pressures of the Cold War and the regime’s 
Pushtun-oriented nationalism (which gener- 
ated tensions with neighboring Pakistan) an 
influential part of the Pushtun elite moved 
closer to Moscow. This process resulted in 
the ousting of Zahir Shah by his cousin and 
former prime minister, Muhammad Daud, 
with support from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, 
and Iran. Daud abolished the monarchy and 
proclaimed himself president of the republic 
of Afghanistan. The Soviets responded by 
sponsoring a coup by the communist People’s 
Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PD PA), a 
move that resulted in direct Soviet interven- 
tion in 1979 to prop up the Parcham (non- 



1S6 




AFGHANISTAN 1840-2002 



Pushtun) faction of the PDPA under Barbak 
Kamal. The ensuing jihad — supported by 
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United 
States — attracted volunteers from many 
Muslim countries, including the wealthy 
Saudi Islamist Osama bin Laden. With the 
help of US-supplied Stinger missiles, the 



dominated Taliban regime (supported by 
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) headed by Bin 
Laden’s close ally Mullah Muhammad Omar. 
After taking Kabul in 1994 the Taliban barred 
women from schools and other workplaces, 
massacred the Shiite Hazaras, and brought 
Iran to the brink of military intervention by 




Samarkand 



Termez 



Kuska 



Mazar-i-Sha/if 



Maimana 



Kunduz 



• Heret 



Bahian 



Shamali Operation 
Nov. 1983 



Shindand 



.Bagraj 

Shamali eos/emSk. KatnJ 
offensive. 1985 - 



Jalalabad^ 

\war Campaign, 1986 

• Peshawar 



Ghazni 



Lashkar Gah 



Srinagar 



Kandahar 



land over 2000m 



Lahore • 



• Amritsar 



The Afghanistan War 1979-86 
and Soviet Retreat 1988-89 





Soviet Advance 1979 




Soviet airfields 




Soviet Retreat 


■ 


Soviet infantry bases 


s' 


Refugees 


9 


Soviet airborne infantry base 


* 


Soviet Campaigns 1981-86 




Airfields constructed and 
enlarged after 1980 by USSR 



mujahadin forced the Soviet Union to with- 
draw its troops from Afghanistan in 1989. Far 
from generating a sense of national unity, 
however, the struggle against the Soviets 
served to intensify interethnic strife, as the 
central institutions of state disintegrated. 
The factional fighting that followed the 
Soviet withdrawal and the collapse of the 
Marxist regime of General Najiballah in 
1992 opened the way for the radical Pushtun- 



murdering nine of its diplomats. 

After the attacks on New York and 
Washington in September 2001 by terrorists 
allegedly belonging to Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda 
network the Americans removed the Taliban 
regime by a massive bombing campaign. The 
new Pushtun leader Ahmad Karzai, installed 
by the United States following an interna- 
tional conference in Berlin, is a cousin of 
Zahir Shah. 



1 57 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Arabia and the Gulf 1839—1950 



The modern history of Arabia and the Per- 
sian Gulf is a complex pattern of interac- 
tions between the local forces on the ground 
and regional and global powers. The stakes 
are vastly increased through the presence of 
oil and the growing dependence of Western 
economies (including that of Japan) on reg- 
ular affordable supplies. Until the discovery 
of oil the region was mostly poor (except for 
the pearling centers of Kuwait and Bahrain, 
and trading port of Muscat) and of no great 
interest to the outside world. Britain, how- 
ever, needed to protect its Indian Empire 
from potential rivals or competitors, includ- 
ing Tsarist Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and 
Iran. In 1839 it captured Aden, which 
became a vital coaling station (and later oil 
refueling depot) on the route to India. 

The development of Aden initiated a 
process whereby the whole of the South 
Arabian littoral and its hinterland — includ- 
ing the highlands of Lahej and the feuding 
city states of the Wadi Hadhramaut — were 
pacified by the British during the 1930s 
using Royal Air Force bombers as the ulti- 
mate sanction. The South Arabian protec- 
torate (later renamed South Yemen, before 
being united with Yemen in 1991) included 
some twenty-three sultanates, emirates, and 
tribal regimes under overall British control, 
with the sultans dominating the cities and 
the hereditary class of sayyids, who claimed 
descent from the Prophet, holding land and 
serving as mediators among the clans of the 
interior. 

Further east the Omani Albu Said dynasty 
under its leader Sayyid Said bin Sultan 
(1807-56), created an extensive Indian Ocean 
empire that grew wealthy on the slave trade 
and the export of ivory and spices from the 
sultan’s domains in Zanzibar. Under a series 
of treaties between 1838 and 1856 Sayyid 
Said bowed to British demands to restrict 



slavery — providing further pretexts for 
British intervention. On his death in 1856 the 
British resolved a dispute between his sons 
Majid, and Thuwaini by decreeing that 
Zanzibar, inherited by Majid should pay 
Muscat, inherited by Thwaini, for the loss of 
revenue resulting from the division of the 
empire between them. British intervention in 
the Gulf region north of Muscat was 
prompted by the suppression of piracy as 
well as slavery. Under a series of treaties 
signed between 1835 and 1853 the shaikhs of 
Arab seafaring tribes who lived by preying on 
shipping (Arab as well as British) agreed to a 
truce suspending all piratical activity (while 
also agreeing to suppress the slave trade). 
Compliance was supervised by the British 
Indian Navy. The Trucial System protected 
pearling and also benefited Arab shipping, 
which had suffered most from the insecurity 
caused by piracy, with local merchants send- 
ing their goods via better-armed and protect- 
ed British ships. The Trucial States (now the 
United Arab Emirates) remained British pro- 
tectorates until 1971, with Britain supplying 
officers and controlling foreign policy. 

Britain expanded its influence to include 
Kuwait in 1896, where it established an infor- 
mal protectorate to guard its client, Shaikh 
Mubarak, from direct occupation by Turkey. 
As the major power in the region Britain 
intervened in many local disputes, regulating 
contested frontiers and trying to guarantee 
continuity of succession. The most notable 
cases include the quarrel between Abu 
Dhabi, Oman, and Saudi Arabia over the 
Buraimi Oasis. This led to the expulsion of 
Saudi forces by the British-led Trucial Oman 
Scouts in 1955, and Iraq’s claim to Kuwait 
(dating from Ottoman times when the shaikh 
formally acknowledged Ottoman suzerain- 
ty), which Britain resisted by sending troops 
to guarantee its independence in 1961. 



158 



ARABIA AND THE GULF 1 839-1 9S0 




'Aden Captured by Britain 1839 



1S9 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Rise of the Saudi State 




Abd al-Aziz lbn Saud ( seated 
lower left ) developed the Ihkwan 
(brethren), recruited from 
Bedouin tribes. With this 
committed force, lbn Saud built 
the state that became Saudi 
Arabia in 1932. 



The establishment of 
the Kingdom of Saudi 
Arabia in the twenti- 
eth century replicates 
many of the features 
of Muhammad’s origi- 
nal movements and the 
jihad movements in 
North Africa as ana- 
lyzed by the great 
Arab philosopher of 
history lbn Khaldun 
(1332-1406). The orig- 
inal Saudi state, 
founded in the eigh- 
teenth century, was 
built on an alliance 
between a religious 
reformer of the Han- 
bali school, Muham- 
mad lbn Abd al-Wah- 
hab, and Muhammad 
al-Saud, a chief of the 
Aniza. After wreaking 
devastation in Iraq 
and the Hijaz, the 
Saud’s sphere was greatly reduced by Egyptian 
intervention in 1818 and was briefly eliminat- 
ed in the 1890s when power passed to the pro- 
Ottoman al-Rashid family. In reviving his 
ancestral state after raiding the Rashid strong- 
hold at Riyadh in 1902, Muhammad al-Saud’s 
descendent Abd al-Aziz (known as lbn Saud) 
followed the same classical pattern of combin- 
ing the military power of the tribes with the 
moral force of a religious revival. All who 
failed to adhere to the Wahhabite code were 
subject to persecution. Ibn Saud’s warriors, 
known simply as Ikhwan (brethren) were 
organized into agricultural settlements called 
Hij ras. These were inspired by the community 
founded by the Prophet Muhammad at Medi- 
na in 622. Here the former nomads were given 



military training and indoctrinated into strict 
Wahhabite tenets. With the Hijra colonies 
located at strategic points all over the Nejd 
plateau, the Ikhwan could be mobilized rapid- 
ly, while Ibn Saud was spared the cost of a 
standing army. 

Unlike the original Islamic movement, 
however, the Saudi state’s outward momen- 
tum was blocked by the European powers that 
held sway on Arabia’s perimeters. While 
Britain collaborated with Saudi expansion 
into al-Hasa, the Hijaz, and (with Italian con- 
nivance) Asir on the borders of Yemen, 
Ikhwan raids into Transjordan and Iraq were 
met with devastating fire from the Transjor- 
danian Frontier Force and the British Royal 
Air Force, since Britain had guaranteed the 
integrity of the Hashemite kingdoms granted 
to the sons of the Sharif Hussein of Mecca, 
former ruler of the Hijaz. 

After winning recognition from the interna- 
tional powers, Ibn Saud faced an internal 
rebellion from disaffected Ikhwan who had 
become resentful of Western influence and 
technologies. He defeated them at the battle of 
Sabilla in 1929. 



Territorial Growth of the Saudi State 

1902-26 


■ 


Territory under the control of Ibn Saud c. 1912 


□ 


Additions by 1920 


m 


Additions by 1926 




Major attacks and campaigns 


sum 


Major tribe 


m 


Territory under British control 




Territory under British influence 


□ 


Territory under French control 


□ 


Territory under Russian influence 


m 


Territory under Italian control 



160 



RISE OF THE SAUDI STATE 




Diyarbakir 



• Maras 



Hakkari 



Adana 



Iskenderun • 
S. A 
Antakya * 

Latakia 



• Mosul 



Aleppo 



Kirkuk 



TERR. OF 
ALAWITES 



Hama 



SYRIA 

French Mandate 
1920 



Homs 



Tripoli • 
LEBANON 
Beirut • 



IRAQ 

British Mandate 
1920 

HabbaniyaT*v m 



Kermanshah 



Borujerd 



Baghdad' 



Khorramabad 



Karbala* • al-Hilla 



PALESTINE 



j • Amman 
Jerusalem 

^ TRANS-/ 
/JORDAN \ 
Emirate under Brit. 
Suzerainty, 1 923 

BAN A 

Ipo SAKH 



Dezful 



Ahvaz 



Abu Dhabi 



Abadan 



Sakaka 



Shiraz 



KUWAIT 

• Kuwait 



Firuzabad 



Tabuk 



Bandar-e 
Lengeh • 



BAHRAIN 



• Burayda 



‘ / Dhahran 

AWAZIM 

al-Hufuf • 



(to Oman) 



QATAR 



Medina 



Abu Dhabi 



Riyadh ® 

Captured by Ibn Saud 
1902 



Khabura 



Yanbual Bahr 



TRUCl^y. 



Muscat 



ANGLO- 

EGYPTIAN 

SUDAN 



ASIR 

1 920 to Nejd 

1919-20 

\ Abha 



• Suakin 



Massawa 



YEMEN 

Independent 1919 



HADHRAMAUT 



Asmara 



al-Hudayda 



Mukalla 



Aduwa 



ADEN 



100 miles 



Mocha 



/Aden 



161 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Flashpoint Israel— Palestine 




Latakipia 



LEBANON, 



Beirut 



Metullal 



Nazaretl 



Hadera « 
Netanya • 



• Nablus 



'•Jericho 

:thlehem 

>ton 



Lake 
Marzala * 



Beersheba 



ISRAEL 



Tarita 



•useima 



Ismailia 



Bitter 
^ Lake 



• Nekhl 



El Thamad 



Dahab 



The Six-Day War- 
Israeli Attack 

14-30 May 1967 

Pre-war borders 

Main Israeli attacks 
Israeli air strikes 
^ Airborne landing 



7Wi 

mj 



Lake 

Burullus 



Amman 



El Giza* ^Cairo 
* 



• El Faiyum 

* 



JORDAN 



Port Taufiq 
B atat 



► Ma’a 



• El Minya 



» Maqna 






» Haraiba 



1 Asyut 



harm el Sheikh 



0 50 km 



50 miles 



The roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict lie in the 
age-old yearning of Jews to return to Eretz Yis- 
rael, the land promised by God to the Prophet 
Abraham. Modern Zionism built on this tradi- 
tion, seeing salvation from persecution in the 
acquisition of land where a Jewish sovereign 
state could be created. In 1878, the first Jewish 
settlement was established at Petah Tikva. Dur- 
ing the First World War the British made contra- 
dictory commitments to Arabs and Jews. They 
promised an independent state to the Sharif of 
Mecca, whose sons Faisal and Abdullah led the 
Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks, while 
allowing the establishment of a national home- 
land for the Jewish People in Palestine — a proj- 
ect that met with increasing support among Jew- 
ish communities in Europe after the Nazi acces- 
sion to power in Germany A plan for dividing 
Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, which fol- 
lowed an uprising by Palestinian Arabs begin- 
ning in 1936, was suspended on the outbreak of 
hostilities in 1939. After the Allied victory in the 
Second World War revealed the horrors of the 
Nazi genocide, pressure for mass Jewish immi- 
gration became overwhelming. A 1947 UN par- 
tition plan providing for Arab and Jewish states 
“each entwined in an inimical embrace like two 
fighting serpents,” in the words of one official, 
was accepted by the Jewish leaders but rejected 
by the Arabs. On May 14 1948, the British with- 
drew and on the following day Israel’s independ- 
ence was recognized by the major powers. The 
new state survived simultaneous but poorly 
coordinated attacks by the armies of the sur- 
rounding Arab states, leaving it with more terri- 
tory than had been awarded to it under the UN 
plan. Transjordan — later Jordan — gained con- 
trol of a part of Palestine, including East 
Jerusalem, which contains shrines sacred to 
Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Attacks by Jew- 
ish irregulars, such as the massacre of Palestin- 
ian villagers of Deir Yassin in 1948, prompted 
the flight of thousands of Palestinians, creating 



162 




FLASHPOINT ISRAEL-PALESTINE 



the refugee problem which would fuel subse- 
quent wars in 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982. 

The third Arab-Israeli war, in June 1967, left 
Israel in control of Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, 
and the Golan Heights, with Israel subsequently 
annexing Arab East Jerusalem and planting Jew- 
ish settlements in the Occupied Territories. Limit- 
ed military success achieved by the Egyptians in 
the fourth Arab-Israeli war in October 1973 
emboldened the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat 
to make his historic visit to Jerusalem in 1977. 
This initiated the process that culminated in the 
signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty at 
Camp David in 1979, followed by disengagement 
agreements with Syria and a treaty between Israel 



and Jordan in 1994. The Palestinian problem, 
however, remains unresolved. Although the Pales- 
tine Liberation Organization, under its chairman 
Yasser Arafat, recognized Israel’s right to exist in 
1988 and achieved limited autonomy for Pales- 
tinians in Gaza, Jericho, and other parts of the 
West Bank under the 1993 Oslo accords, the 
Islamist organizations, including Hamas and 
Islamic Jihad, reject the peace process. Continu- 
ing Jewish settlements, terrorist attacks on civil- 
ians (including suicide bombings), and Israeli 
measures such as the creation of a Berlin-style 
wall between Israel and the West Bank and the 
targeted killings of Palestinian leaders, have made 
the prospects for peace increasingly difficult. 




Tripoli • 



LEBANON 



Beirut • 



Zahle* 



Metiillaf#* 



Haifa# 
Nazareth • 



Hadera • 
Netanya • 



• Amman 



Rehovot • 



•Jericho 

£thlehem 

froti 



Jerusalem 



Dumyat 



• Beersheba 



al-Arish 



iKuntill; 



The October War 


6 October 1973 


m 


Occupied by Israel 




Arab attacks 


r' 


Furthest Arab advance 




Israeli counterattacks 
6-24 October 



Damascus • 

AJ SYRIA 



JORDAN 



al-Mahalla 
* al-Kubra 



Ismailia « 

E G YP T 

• Cairo 




163 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Flashpoint Gulf 1950—2003 

There were several wars fought in the Gulf in 
the second half of the twentieth century. The 
three major wars were the Iran-Iraq war of 
1979-89, the Iraqi invasion of and subsequent 




Tikrit 



'BAGHDAD 



Karbala 



-Numaniya 



al-Amara 



’As Samawal 



al-Nasiriya 



Sue] al Shuyukh 



As Salman 



// /Umm \ J 
Qasr C* 

|^X^| R Marines \ 



1 Armored 



Kuwait 



Persian 

Gulf 



The Advance to Baghdad 

March 20-30, 2003 

3rd Infantry Division attacks 
1st Marine Division attacks 
Task Force Tarawa attacks 
British attacks 
f?7l Road number 



expulsion from Kuwait in 1990-91, and the 
war which began in 2003 with the US-led inva- 
sion of Iraq. 

In each of these wars the motives of the 
combatants remain in dispute. There is con- 
siderable underlying evidence that oil was an 
important contributory factor. In the centuries 
prior to the discovery of oil the region was not 
the focus of major war between local states or 
the European powers. In contrast, the rich 
sugar-producing islands of the Caribbean 
were fought over frequently in the eighteenth 
and early nineteenth centuries. Oil provided 
the money for states in the region to acquire 
very large quantities of armaments in the sec- 
ond half of the twentieth century and these 
made large-scale war more possible. Saddam 
Hussein’s exact motivation in attacking first 
Iran and then Kuwait a decade later may never 
be known. However, in both cases the prospect 
of a quick victory resulting in the acquisition 
of oil-producing areas seems to have had a 
part to play. Some allege that the US actively 
encouraged the attack on Iran as a means of 
curbing the recent Iranian revolution. Both 
states proved remarkably resilient despite the 
strains of war. And against Iranian expecta- 
tions, Shiite citizens of Iraq put their Arab or 
Iraqi identity before their allegiance to their 
co-religionists in Iran. 

The Iran-Iraq war resulted in hundreds of 
thousands of casualties on both sides and last- 
ed for almost ten years. It was a war that 
involved all the characteristics of major indus- 
trialized warfare as it developed during the 
First and Second World Wars, including mass 
infantry attacks, trench warfare, combined 
arms battles involving tanks, aircraft, artillery, 
missiles, and poison gas. Although the Irani- 
ans protested at the illegal use by Iraq of 



164 




FLASHPOINT GULF 1950-2003 



chemical weapons the international communi- 
ty remained silent on the matter. This issue 
continues to influence Iranian attitudes to 
what it regards as Western double standards 
on weapons of mass destruction (WMD). 

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 
1991 was probably triggered by Iraq’s poor 
financial condition and a misreading of the 
likely international reaction. Not only was the 
attack on a UN member state (and a member 
of the Arab League), it was also a blatant vio- 
lation of international law. If unopposed it 
would have left Iraq in control of a far larger 
proportion of the world’s oil reserves than it 
had already. From an Iraqi perspective it is 
possible to argue that borders and states hand- 
ed down by colonial rulers and without his- 
torical basis do not deserve to be respected. 
However Iraq had formally recognized 
Kuwait’s sovereignty within its present borders 
in 1963. In any event the UN-backed coalition, 
including large army units from Egypt and 
Syria, expelled Iraq from Kuwait early in 1991. 

In 2003, the US and UK attacked Iraq. 
They claimed to be implementing UN resolu- 
tions that the UN itself had failed to carry out 
and that Iraq presented a regional and indeed 
global threat from weapons of mass destruc- 
tion (including nuclear, biological, and chem- 
ical weaponry). Most of the world regarded 
the attack as a breach of the UN’s founding 
principle of outlawing aggressive war. The US 
was supported by neither Mexico nor Canada 
despite both nations’ economic dependence 
on the US. 

No operational weapons were found in the 
Iraqi armed forces and as of late 2003 no man- 
ufacturing programs of WMD were found 
either. The first phase of the war was complet- 
ed in a few weeks as US armored forces drove to 
and occupied Baghdad and Iraq’s other major 
cities. The exact nature of the battles that took 



place and the extent to which the Iraqi regular 
army fought against overwhelming odds 
remains unclear. Despite the success of the 
Americans in capturing Saddam Hussein in 
December 2003, the coalition forces continued 
to be subject to sporadic guerrilla attacks. 




Tikrit 



(BAGHDAD 



Karbala 



-Numaniya 



1 1 wan I 



al-Amara 



'As Samawal 



-Nasiriya 



Suq al Shuyukh 



As Salman 



Basrah 



Umm 
,• Qasr 



Kuwait 



The Advance to Baghdad 

March 30 -April 12, 2003 

Army attacks 

1st Marine Division attacks 
Task Force Tarawa advances 
[?7l Road number 



165 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Muslims in Western Europe 




Arctic Circle 



RUSSIAN 

ESTONIA FEDERATION 



LATVIA 



LITHUANIA 



UNITED 

KINGDOM 



RUSSL 



BELORUSSIA 



Dublin ■ 



• Bradford 
'Manchester 



Hamburg, 



LiverpooP 



RELAND 



y Berlin 
GERM AN Y ■# 



Amsterdam 
. . Utrecht* 
Hague b 



Pakistan 



London 



India 

Indonesia 



UKRAINE 



SLOVAKIA 



Munich * 



AUSTRIA X HUNGARY 



• Milan 
'urin 



• Bordeaux 



Danube 



BOSNL 

HERZE( 



’ Venice 



SERBIA 



BULGARIA 



Monaco 



ANDORRA 



ALBANIA 



Rome' 



Barceh 



Madrid 



Lisbom 



Cadiz 



Almeria 



MALTA 



France (Paris) 

The majority of migration to France from Muslim 
countries has been from Algeria, prior to the 1960s. 
Increasingly, other Moroccan and Tunisian Muslims, 
as well as those from western Africa, have established 



Germany (Hamburg, 
Munich, Frankfurt) 

Muslim migration to Ger- 
many is dominated by 
Turks. During the 1950s, 
Germany actively encour- 
aged the migration of 
workers from Turkey. 
Most of the employment 
opportunities on offer 
were unskilled or semiskilled. During the 1970s, 
there was an increased movement of Turkish 
workers to Germany that led to the development 
of particular focused communities. During this 



/ 


/ w J 


Muslim Migration into 
the European Union 


□ 


Signature of the 
Treaty of Rome, 1957 


m 


EEC member added 1973 


□ 


EEC member added 1986 


□ 


Became part of the EEC after 
unification of Germany, 1990 


m 


EEC member added 1995 


■ 


EEC membership approved 
May 2004 


■ 


Membership pending 




Directions and the sources 
of immigration 



themselves there. Originally 
most migrants were male 
sojourners who sent remit- 
tances home, but from the 
1980s the gender balance has 
been settled as families were 
established. Although there 
are significant communities 
of Muslims in Marseilles, 
Lyons, and Lille, Paris is the 
primary city of settlement. 
The main Paris mosque was 
established in 1926, but the 
main Muslim areas of the 
city were populated in the 
period after the 1950s. Mus- 
lims in France still tend to be 
focused on their countries of 
origin with many mosques 
representing this diversity 
Sufi groups are particularly 
active in Paris, especially 
those from the North 
African traditions such as 
the Darqawiyya and 
Alawiyya. These groups 
attract some French con- 
verts to Islam. 



166 




MUSLIMS IN WESTERN EUROPE 



period, families joined the original migrants. 
Most workers were accorded the status of “guest 
worker,” which emphasized the official notion of 
the settlement being temporary. During the 
1980s, the Muslim communities began to estab- 
lish social and religious provision by building 
mosques and forming religious associations, 
many linked to groups based in Turkey. Like- 
wise, Sufi groups, such as the Naqshbandiyya, 
have been very active and often through these 
groups, converts to Islam have played a signifi- 
cant role in the Muslim communities. 

United Kingdom (London, Glasgow, 
Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford) 

Muslim migration to the UK began from the mid- 
nineteenth century with settlement of Yemeni 
seamen in the ports of Cardiff, South Shields, 
Liverpool, and London, and eventually in Birm- 
ingham. However most Muslim migration to the 
UK has been from southern Asia (Pakistan and 
Bangladesh), where, during the 1950s and early 
1960s, many economic migrants arrived to take 
up employment by invitation. During the 1960s, 
the arrival of families led to the establishment of 
various provisions of religious and cultural servic- 
es, as happened in most migrant communities in 
Europe. London, in particular, has attracted 
diverse communities. This has led to a more liber- 
al cultural and religious perspective than among 
other Muslim communities in the UK. Significant 
numbers of Arabs, as well as Pakistanis and 
Bangladeshis, mix with more recent Muslim 
refugees and overseas Muslim students. Bradford 
has a more homogeneous community of Pak- 
istani origin, which has led to a less diverse reli- 
gious focus. Birmingham, on the other hand, 
though constituting a community predominantly 
of Pakistani origin, has a far more diverse Muslim 
community that includes a significant number of 
converts of Afro-Caribbean origin. Increasingly, 
Muslim youth in the UK are rediscovering Islam 
as a part of their personal identity. Young Muslim 
women are adopting the use of hijab as a means 
of asserting their own identity based on self- 



exploration rather than accepting the religious 
assumptions and practices of the previous gener- 
ation. As in other European contexts, Sufism 
plays a significant role as a religious movement, 
especially in attracting converts. 

The Netherlands (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, 

The Hague, Utrecht) 

The Netherlands has a diverse Muslim communi- 
ty made up of Turks and North Africans as well as 
Moluccans from the former Dutch East Indies. As 
the communities established themselves, there has 
been an increase in the number of mosques since 
the 1980s. Many of these mosques are linked to 
the countries of origin, especially those of Turkish 
origin, where imams are provided by Turkey The 
Dutch state provides the teaching of home lan- 
guages in schools, but as in other parts of Europe, 
religious education is provided by the mosques. 

Italy (Rome, Milan, Turin) 

Italy has a diverse Muslim community, pre- 
dominantly made up of Moroccans and 
Tunisians with increasing numbers from the 
former Yugoslavia. During the 1980s and 90s 
the Moroccan community in particular estab- 
lished mosques and the provision of religious 
educational needs. 

Spain 

Spain, with its Muslim history, is significant as a 
European country developing a resurgence of 
engagement with Islam, especially in the south. 
The majority of migrant Muslims to Spain have 
been from North Africa, the majority from 
Morocco. There are also communities from Sub- 
saharan Africa and the Middle East. There has 
been an increasing number of mosques established 
and the provision of religious education. General- 
ly, Spanish attitudes to Islam are quite sympathet- 
ic and there is a significant convert movement of 
Spaniards, in particular in Andalusia. Here the 
assertion of regional autonomy and conversion to 
Islam may be experienced as the rediscovery of an 
identity suppressed for many centuries. 




Built around 1750, the mosque in 
the castle garden of 
Schwetzingen, Germany, blends 
Islamic motifs with European 
baroque influences. 



167 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Muslims in North America 




ties settled 
were Michigan, 
Ohio, Indiana, Illi- 
nois, Massachusetts, 
Iowa, Louisiana, New York, and 
Pennsylvania. In Canada, Muslim com- 
munities have not been so concentrated in 
particular locations and are more geograph- 
ically mobile. The countries of origin have 
also contrasted with the US with the major- 
ity of Muslim migrants to Canada originat- 
ing from Arab countries, North Africa, Sub- 
saharan Africa, southeastern Europe, 
Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, the Far East, and 
East Africa. Some originated from countries 
of the British Commonwealth. In both the 



Muslim populations in the US originate 
from an early period. There is evidence to 
suggest that the first Muslims arrived with 
Spanish explorers in the sixteenth century. 
But the initial substantial communities 
resulted from immigration from Syria and 
Lebanon during the 1860s with further 
influxes in subsequent decades. The period 
following the Second World War saw signif- 
icant numbers arriving in response to the 
economic and political constraints in their 
land of origin, including Europe, southwest- 
ern Asia, East Africa, India, and Pakistan. 

The main states where Muslim communi- 



EMPIRE 



Late 19th and Early 
20th Centuries 

] Area of Islam 
Migration 



US and Canada, conversion has been a fac- 
tor in the emergence of Muslim communi- 
ties. African-American converts in the US, in 
particular, have been very significant. 

The Nation of Islam (NOI), a separatist 
movement among African-Americans, has 
not been considered part of Islam by the 
majority of Muslims. It remains a signifi- 
cant force, although since since 1976, when 
Warith Deen Muhammad, the son of the 
NOI founder Elijah Muhammad, took over 
part of the movement, an increasing pro- 
portion of African-American Muslims have 
aligned themselves with mainstream Sunni 
Muslim belief and practice. African-Ameri- 
can Muslims make up a significant propor- 
tion of the Muslim community in the US. 
Conversion in prison among black inmates 
is particularly significant as a response to 
racism and institutionalized brutality, and 
draws on the Muslim ancestral origins of 
many African-Americans. White converts 
are not as significant in numbers, but are, 
nonetheless, vocal exponents of the faith, 
often, as in Europe, associated with Sufi 
movements. The early establishment of 
Muslims in North America has led to a 
period of assimilation in which, with excep- 
tion of the African-American Muslims, 
issues of religious identity have been sub- 
sumed in cultural integration. With the 
arrival of overseas Muslim students and 
more recent migrants who were practicing 
Muslims, for example from Pakistan, there 
has been an increase in the assertion of reli- 
gious identity. There is generally a wide 
spectrum of religious practice in North 
American communities. Although many 
Muslim associations and mosques are ethni- 
cally based, there are also Muslim organiza- 
tions that are trans-ethnic. 

The Muslim Students’ Association, found- 
ed in 1963 by Muslim students at the Univer- 



168 



MUSLIMS IN NORTH AMERICA 




sity of Illinois-Urbana, 
has been particularly 
significant in assert- 
ing a Muslim iden- 
tity in contradis- 
tinction to an eth- 
nic identity. Other 
umbrella organizations 
in the US and the Council 
of Muslim Communities of 
Canada have made significant 
contributions in the shift toward 
a collective Muslim identity. At a 
local level, most concentrations of 
Muslims in cities such as Detroit, 

New York, and Chicago, have provision 
for halal food, funerary facilities, 
mosques, and community halls, as well as 
organized educational provision for reli- 
gious instruction for children. In terms of 
relationships with the wider community, 
Muslims in North America, in the US in par- 
ticular, have experienced significant chal- 
lenges over the last twenty-five years. After 
the Iranian Revolution in 1979, when Ameri- 
cans were held hostage in the Tehran 
embassy, public opinion concerning Islam 
and Muslims began to shift in a negative 
direction. The events of September 11th 



2001, other attacks on Americans, and the 
killing of Israeli civilians (with whom Evan- 
gelical Christians as well as Jews tend to 
empathize strongly) have had a massive 
impact on Muslim communities in the West 
generally, but especially in the US. Communi- 
ty and religious leaders have had to counter 
the negative stereotyping of Islam as a reli- 
gion of violence, while addressing the politi- 
cizing of Islam in their own communities. 



After World War II 

m area of Islam 

^ . migration 

country sending 
students 




The Black Muslim leader 
Malcolm X began his life as a 
petty criminal before his 
conversion to the separatist 
Nation of Islam (NOI). His 
pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964, 
however, persuaded him that 
separatism was wrong, and that 
true Islam included people of all 
races. Three NOI members were 
convicted for his murder 
following his assassination in 
February 1965. 



169 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Mosques and Places ofWorship in North America 



The Islamic Society of North 
America’s Headquarters Mosque, 
near Indianapolis, Indiana. 
Designed by architects Gulzar 
Haider and Mukhtar Khalil, and 
completed in 1981, it displays a 
progressive, modern profile for 
the faith of up to 8 million 
Americans and Canadians. As 
well as a prayer hall, the building 
contains a library and 
administrative offices. 




Following the establishment of communities 
in the US, the 1920s saw the first appearance 
of mosque buildings to serve the religious 
and social needs of Muslims. As in Europe, 
homes initially functioned as mosques, 
followed by the conversion of existing houses 
to serve as mosques. The construction of 
mosques built specifically for the purpose 
came at a later phase. Most mosques were 
originally established to serve ethnically 
defined communities and were not sectarian 
as such, the buildings being used for both 
social and religious purposes. Often for larg- 
er events, such as the Id prayers, public and 
private halls have been hired to accommodate 
worshippers — this has been the case in 
Toronto, Montreal, and Edmonton in 
Canada. The first African-American mosque, 
of the Nation of Islam, was established in 
Harlem in 1950. 

However, up until the 1960s, there were 
insufficient mosques to serve the growing 
Muslim community who instead used private 
prayer rooms and spaces to fulfill religious 
obligations. There are now over 1,000 formal 
mosques in the US. 

One of the largest mosques built in the US 
is the Detroit Islamic Center, which was 
erected between 1962 and 1968. The con- 
struction was paid for by the local Muslim 
community who formed its congregation. 



Grants coming from the Egyptian, Saudi Ara- 
bian, Iranian, and Lebanese governments 
revealed the shift toward mosques becoming 
less ethnically focused in terms of congrega- 
tions. In the US, the Council of Masjids has 
been established to facilitate the provision of 
mosques to serve the Muslim community. A 
report in 2001 showed that mosque atten- 
dance, based on ethnic analysis, included 
southern Asians (33 percent), African- 
Americans (30 percent), and Arabs (25 per- 
cent). Imams still tend to be recruited from 
overseas from countries including Egypt, 
Turkey, and Pakistan, but increasingly there 
are US-trained imams as more provision for 
imamate training is established. Some imams 
are also funded from overseas but most have 
their salaries paid for by local communities. 
A Council of Imams was established in 1972. 
Mosques are, in the main, managed by local 
consultative councils. 

Mosques and other buildings used by Mus- 
lims in North America including Ithna Ashari 
Husayniyyes, Ismaili Jamat-khanas and 
Nation of Islam temples serve a range of func- 
tions besides being places of worship. They are 
used for educational purposes, such as week- 
end schools, children’s classes, lectures, and 
adult education. They provide libraries, book- 
stores, and small publishing facilities for Islam- 
ic materials as well as granting facilities for 
social events such as weddings and funerals. 
Crucially, they present a point of contact for 
non-Muslims to learn about Islam and to meet 
Muslims — an issue of vital importance in the 
aftermath of the attacks on New York and 
Washington in 2001. As the Muslim communi- 
ties of North America are evolving, mosques 
and other congregational centers are becoming 
the focal point for community initiatives. 



170 




MOSQUES AND PLACES OF WORSHIP IN NORTH AMERICA 



Attendance at places of worship should 
not necessarily be equated with the develop- 
ment of the Muslim-American community in 
its broader aspects. A 1987 study found that 
only 10-20 percent of Muslim-Americans 
attended mosques regularly (as compared to 
about 40 percent church attendance for the 
Christian population). While some younger 
Muslims may be reaffirming their Islamic 
identities by observing religious rituals and 
practices, the majority of recent immigrants 
from South and Central Asia may be more 
concerned with integrating themselves into 
mainstream American society. 




The Islamic Cultural Center, 
constructed in 1984 at Tempe, 
Arizona. 



Mosques 
by State 2000 




over 200 
100-199 
50-99 
10-49 




171 





HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Islamic Arts 



Chinese porcelain was much 
admired in the Islamic world and 
its influence can clearly be seen in 
this Saljuq jug. 

Far right: Equally, in the portrait 
of Selim III, European influences 
can be seen in this personal 
representation. 



A vibrant tradition of the arts flourished in 
Islamic lands. In contrast to other artistic tra- 
ditions elsewhere, the most important arts in 




Islam are those considered “decorative,” 
“minor,” or “portable” in other traditions, 
such as textiles, calligraphy and the book 
arts, ceramics, metalwork, glassware, and the 
like. Most of them involved the transforma- 
tion of humble materials, such as plant or 
animal fibers, sand, clay, or metal ores, into 
sublime works of art, characterized by lumi- 
nous colors and intricate designs. Many of 
the finest objects are ultimately utilitarian 
pieces, such as bath buckets and serving 
trays, to be used in everyday life. 

It is often said that Islam prohibited figur- 
al representation in its art, but that is not so. 
Rather, Islam discouraged depictions in all 



religious contexts probably out of the same 
fear of idolatry that other religions had grap- 
pled with in earlier times. In other contexts, 
particularly private and courtly settings, a 
lively tradition of pictorial art evolved. The 
walls of palaces, for example, were often 
painted with figural scenes; mosques were 
not. There, nonrepresentational decoration 
based on geometric, vegetal, and epigraphic 
ornament reigned supreme. While all figural 
art produced in the lands of Islam is, by def- 
inition, not religious, the converse is not nec- 
essarily true. Nonrepresentational art was 
appropriate and esteemed in any setting, 
whether secular or religious. 

Textiles were the mainstay of economic 
life in medieval Islamic times. Made of wool, 
flax, silk, and cotton, they ranged from gos- 
samer organdies and muslins (named after 
the towns of Urgench in Central Asia and 
Mosul in Iraq) to the sturdy rugs, felts, and 
cloths used by nomads for their tents. Cloth 
was not only used to dress individuals but 
also served to define and furnish spaces in 
this dry land of little wood where people nor- 
mally sat on carpets and leaned against bol- 
sters. People at all levels of society used tex- 
tiles. The majority were plain, but wealthy 
patrons, ranging from caliphs to merchants, 
coveted exotic, brightly colored, elaborately 
decorated cloths. Raw fibers were enlivened 
with bright dyes made from a variety of 
materials, which were themselves traded 
widely. Artisans developed an amazing range 
of techniques, from embroidery and tapestry 
to drawloom weaving and ikat dyeing, to 
make their fabrics beautiful. 

The veneration of the word in Islam meant 
that books and writing were highly valued 
everywhere. The introduction of paper from 



172 




ISLAMIC ARTS 



Central Asia in the eighth century led to an 
explosion of books, book learning, and book 
production, with the associated arts of callig- 
raphy, illumination, binding, and ultimately, 
illustration. The fanciest manuscripts were 
copies of the Koran, made first on parchment 
and later on paper. They often had superb 
nonfigural illumination but were never illus- 
trated. Books with pictures, particularly 
copies of Persian epic and lyric poetic litera- 
ture, became popular in the Persianate world 
from the fourteenth century, when Persian- 
speaking rulers in Iran, Turkey, and India 
established ateliers that produced some of the 
most magnificent books ever made anywhere. 

Many of the other arts associated with the 
lands of Islam use fire to transform materials 
taken from the earth. Muslims inherited ancient 
traditions of pottery from the Near East but 
transformed them through the development of 
new ceramic bodies, colorful glazing tech- 
niques, and decorative repertoires. Some of 
these features, such as overglaze luster painting 
developed in ninth-century Iraq, the artificial 
paste (fritware) body developed in twelfth- 
century Egypt and Iran, and underglaze paint- 
ing developed in twelfth-century Iran, erupted 
in a burst of creative ceramic activity unrivaled 
until the eighteenth century in Britain. 
Although the majority of production was 
unglazed earthenware for storing and transport- 
ing water and foodstuffs on a daily basis, fancy 
dishes, bowls, jugs, bottles, and ewers made in 
the Islamic lands were avidly collected and imi- 
tated from China to Spain. Glassblowing, a 
technique that had been invented in pre-Islamic 
Syria, remained a specialty of the Levant. Glass- 
makers made thousands of gilded and enameled 
lamps used to light the many mosques and 
schools erected to spread God’s word. 

The Prophet Muhammad is said to have 
discouraged the use of gold and silver vessels, 



and Muslim craftsmen took the art of fash- 
ioning wares for daily use from copper alloys, 
such as brass and bronze, to new heights. 
Many of these trays, basins, bowls, buckets, 
ewers, incense-burners, lamps, candlestands, 




candelabra, and the like were decorated with 
inlays of precious metal to enliven their sur- 
faces. Metalwares used in religious settings 
differed from those used in domestic settings 
only in their decoration, which tended to be 
epigraphic, geometric, and vegetal, rather 
than figural. 



173 






HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 




UKRAINE 



FRANCE 



HUN. 



IWITZ. 



ROMANIA 



• Shumen 

BULGARIA ^04 

_rf r noco 

^Istanbul 
Iznik • 

Bursa • 



RomE 



• Palermo 



• Athinai 



Tunis 



Alexandria^ 



Marrakesh 



Cairo 



WESTERN 

SAHARA 



MAURITANIA 



BURKINA 



IVORY 

COAST 



CENTRAL 

AFRICAN 

REPUBLIC 



LIBERIA 



Accra 



Islamic Arts 


O 


Carpets 


& 


Ceramics 




Textiles 


□ 


Metalwares 


5 


Glass 


0 


Ivory carving 


0 


Jade 


Cfl 


Book illustration/illumination 



Lisbon * 



SPAIN 

• Toledo 



O 

'Cordoba a O * Murcm 

• Grenada 

4. Jicp 

Malaga 



Rabat • • Fez 

o 



ATLANTIC 



OCEAN 



Dakar t SENEGAL X 

GUINEA 

Conakry a 



LIBYA 



EGYPT 



SUDAN 



GABON 



174 



ISLAMIC ARTS 




Urgench , 
( 14C) 



■GEORGIA 



KYRGYZSTAN 



TAJIKSTAN 



Merv 
• (8-12C) 



L-U Kabul • 

0 Herat 

AFGHANISTAN 



Kashmir 



Lahore • 



Samarra • 



• Kirman 



Shiraz 



Karachi 



SAUDI 

Riyadh * 



Ahmadabad 



ARABIA 



Calcutta • 



• Mecca 



BANGLA- 

DESH 



Bombay • 



• Hyderabad 



• Khartoum 



Bangalore • 



• Madras 



Addis 

Ababa 



KENYA 



R3 • Amasya AZA. ARMENIA “ 

TURKEY TURKME. 

<£>*Kaiscri KpO| 

^ £ • Diyarbakir • Tabriz 

■0 jyUjP\' Mash; 

Aleppo® Ra qq a uWcfcl *^0 Qfl ^ 

SYRIA • Kashan 

leb. bSSS Isfahan • O* ^ 03 

•Damascus IRAN 

.CD ACT IRAQ _ ®Yazd 

ISRAEL V X (^CQO 



M 1 



SRI 

LANKA 



17S 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Major Islamic Architectural Sites 




The presence of Muslims in any given area is 
marked by distinctive building types, most 
notably the congregational or Friday mosque. 
While the mosque can take many forms, 
depending on local materials and 
building practices, it is always a 
structure oriented toward Mecca, 
large enough to accommodate the 
Muslim male population. Mosques 
were generally built of brick or 
stone and covered with vaults or 
domes. Wood was often unavailable 
or too expensive to use for roofing 
in this largely arid region, although 
it was used in heavily forested 
regions such as Anatolia and South- 
east Asia. Elsewhere, fine woods 
were reserved for mosque furniture, 
such as minbars (pulpits) and read- 
ing-stands, which were often inlaid 
with other woods, bone, ivory, and 
mother-of-pearl. Mosques were 
elaborately decorated in glazed tile 
and carved stucco and strewn with 
pile or flat-woven carpets. These 
displayed vegetal, geometric, and 
epigraphic designs. Figural depic- 
tions were avoided in religious con- 
texts and are found only in secular 
settings. Virtually all mosques have 
a mihrab or niche in the wall facing 
Mecca, and many have one or 
more attached minarets, towers 
front which the call to prayer could 
be given. Since mosques were nor- 
mally constructed of the best qual- 
ity materials available and were 
regularly maintained over the cen- 
turies, they are usually the best preserved build- 
ings in any particular place. 



Rulers often built lavish palaces as symbols 
of their wealth and authority. These have not 
survived as well as mosques, however, because 
their design and construction were more 
experimental. In addition, successors were 
often reluctant to maintain the splendid 
achievements of their rivals. Archaeological 
investigations in the Islamic lands have 
focused on deserted or abandoned palaces, 
such as Khirbat al-Mafjar, the Umayyad 
retreat near Jericho, and Samarra, the ninth- 
century Abbasid capital in Iraq. Only a few 
Islamic palaces have survived above ground, 
such as the Alhambra in Granada, Topkapi 
Saray in Istanbul, and the Red Fort in Delhi. 
Islamic palaces are normally showy but poor- 
ly-constructed buildings in which appearance 
and display take precedence over form and 
structure. Unlike Versailles or the Hermitage, 
Islamic palaces are typically additive struc- 
tures with small pavilions arranged around 
internal courts and magnificent gardens. 

Although the Prophet Muhammad is said to 
have frowned on the construction of monu- 
mental tombs over the graves of the deceased, 
in many parts of the Islamic lands, building 
tombs became a major form of architectural 
patronage. Tombs were constructed over the 
graves of particularly pious individuals as well 
as those of rulers who were anxious to preserve 
their memory in an uncertain world. Most 
tombs are domed structures, either squares, 
octagons, or circles, and range from the mod- 
est marabouts of North Africa to the monu- 
mental Taj Mahal. Many have a mihrab to 
direct the prayers of worshippers who come to 
venerate the deceased. Some have adjacent 
structures to accommodate the expected visi- 
tors and to provide public services ranging 
from Koran schools to soup kitchens. In this 



176 




MAJOR ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURAL SITES 



way, patrons were able to use a charitable foun- 
dation to justify the construction of a tomb. 

Muslims were buried directly in the 
ground, wrapped only in plain white shrouds. 
Thus, the burial goods that archaeologists 
depend on for understanding other cultural 
traditions do not exist in the Muslim lands. 
The relative aridity of much of the region, 
particularly Egypt and Central Asia, however, 



churches, where they were used to wrap the 
bones of Christian saints. 

Archaeological finds attest to the broad 
network of trade routes that crisscrossed 
the Islamic lands, connecting China, India, 
and tropical Africa with Europe. Thanks to 
the domestication of the camel before the 
rise of Islam, most trade went overland, 
with caravanserais often erected at 15-mile 




An enclosed courtyard of the 
Qansuh al-Ghuri Caravanserai in 
Cairo. 



Far left: A relief plaque, part of a 
palace built by al-Mamum, 
Toledo’s most powerful taifa 
ruler. 



has helped preserve fragile organic materials 
that might otherwise have been lost through 
burial. The most important of these are 
textiles, which played the central role in the 
medieval Islamic economy. Many of these 
fragments appear so unprepossessing that 
they are rarely displayed in the museums; 
paradoxically, the best-known textiles from 
the Islamic lands, many inscribed with 
Arabic blessings, were preserved in European 



intervals to accommodate travelers, their 
beasts, and their wares. Some trade went by 
sea, following the Mediterranean coasts or the 
monsoon winds around the Indian Ocean. 
Recent advances in underwater archaeology 
have allowed the exploration of shipwrecks, 
such as the eleventh-century one found at Serfe 
Limani off the coast of Turkey. This site 
yielded a huge quantity of cullet, broken glass 
collected for recycling. 



177 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 




POLAND 



NETH. 

Rotterdam • 



Berlin 



BELORUSSIA 



Warsaw • 



GERMANY 



UKRAINE 



ISTRIA 



IUNGAR! 



IWITZ. 



ROMANIA 



Beograd 



• Shumen 



BULGARIA 



GEORGIA 



Rome • *7 



Saragosa 



) AZA. ARMENIA 

Dogubayezit * 

[£] hbriz^ 1 %9al 



Erzurum 

'™RKEY tee O^ % 

fflO •Konya Dyiarbekr m C 



Lisbon 



Palermo 



• Athens 



Grenada 

13-15C 



Kairouan 



TUNISIA 



Alexandria 



Marrakesh • 



JKhirbat al-Mafjar) 

JORDAN_jV 



Amman' 



Samarra 



Jerusalem 



• Queseir 
’ Qus to14C 



Bahrain 



SAUD 

Riyadh • 



WESTERN 

SAHARA 



QATAR 



Tropic of Cancer 



Chinguetti • 



MAURITANIA 



Timbuukfu 



Khartoum 



SENEGAL 



BURKINA 

Bobo-Dioulasso 



GUINEA 



Conakry 



Addis • 

Ababa 

ETHIOPIA 



IVORY 

COAST 



LIBERIA 



Accra 



Mogadishu 



UGANDA 



Equator 



GABON 



Nairobi 



• Kinshasa 



Zanzibar 

Dar es Salaam 



Luanda 



Architectural and 
Archaelogical Sites 



flSa 


Palace 


a 


Mosque or other 
religious building 


o 


Tomb 


B3 


Housing 


Cn3 


Castle/fortifications 


ITaI 


Bridge 


' ^ 


Shipwreck 



U.K. 

London < 



FRANCE 



ATLANTIC 

OCEAN 



A r"i r LJ " u l I — I n LEB* . 0JL0 Baghdad Isfahan *0^0 



i&Wasii SuSQ 



TANZANIA < 



178 



MAJOR ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURAL SITES 




Harbin • 



• Shenyang 



N. KOREA 



S. KOREA ! 



Kashmir 



Shanghai 



Chengdu • 



• Wuhan 



Chongqing 






*.oKl 



Jaunpur 
/V? Sasaram 



Karachi * • Tatla 



Ahmadabad 



Bombay 



Hainan 



Luzon 



Rangoon • 



Manila 



Bangalore • 



• Madras 



:ambodia 



sri 

LANKA 



• Malacca 



Borneo 



Sumatra 



Timor 



Sox 

Ik" '''A, KYRGYZSTAN 

So[fd ' 

* Termez . I'AJIKS I AN 

A, , Ni^r *-'2T 
ffl HI (9-J3C) 

Herat Kabul # 

0 O Ghazni 

• W Q Q [i AFGHANISTAN 

1 R A N > _ Multan 



Mandu 


Calcutta *A \ 








*Hong Kong 


INDIA 


BANGLA- 

DESH 


BURMA 


v 








Mindanao 



OCEAN 



Sulau . 



179 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



World Distribution of Muslims 2000 



There are approximately twelve hundred mil- 
lion Muslims in the world today, about one- 
fifth of humanity. The vast majority reside in 
the central belt of territories extending east- 
ward from the Atlantic seaboard of North 
Africa to Indonesia. Due to the historic spread 
of Islam into the tropical regions of South and 




Southeast Asia, where intensive cultivation per- 
mits high population densities, the nation with 
the largest number of Muslims (182 million) is 
Indonesia. This is a country far removed from 
the southwestern Asian matrix where Islam 



originated. Next in order of magnitude is Pak- 
istan with 134 million, followed by India (121 
million), Bangladesh (114 million), Egypt (61 
million), and Nigeria (61 million). Of the top 
six Muslim countries containing more than 
half the world’s Muslims, only one, namely 
Egypt, is Arabic-speaking and became part of 
the Islamic world close to the time of its ori- 
gins. In one of them, India, Muslims live as a 
large, but still vulnerable, minority. Demo- 
graphically, the “old” Islam that came into 
being in the course of the Arab conquests has 
been overtaken by the newer and younger Islam 
of the mainly tropical peripheries. 

In terms of the legal and sectarian tradi- 
tions about 85 percent of the world’s Muslims 
belong to the Sunni mainstream and, formally 
if not always in practice, subscribe to one of 
the four Sunni madhhabs (legal schools). The 
Hanafi school, the official school of the 
Ottoman Empire, predominates in former 
Ottoman domains, including Anatolia and the 
Balkans, as well as in Transcaucasia, 
Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, the Central 
Asian republics, and China. The Maliki school 
predominates in the Maghreb and West Africa; 
the Shafis are represented in Egypt, Palestine, 
Jordan, the coastlands of Yemen, and among 
Muslims populations in Pakistan, India, and 
Indonesia; the Hanbali in Saudi Arabia. How- 
ever, different schools have long coexisted in 
some places, and there is considerable overlap- 
ping in countries such as Egypt, where legal 
modernism has allowed the talfiq (piecing 
together) of rulings from different schools. 
Non-Sunni Muslims constitute about 15 per- 
cent of the total population worldwide. The 
Kharijis, who split with the main body of Islam 
in 660, are represented through a modified 
version known as Ibadism in Oman, Zanzibar, 



180 



WORLD DISTRIBUTION OF MUSLIMS 2000 



and Tahert in southern Algeria. Shiite are con- 
centrated in Iran, southern Iraq, Kuwait, and 
Bahrain, with substantial minorities in 
Afghanistan (3.8 million or 15 percent), India 
(3 percent or 30 million), Lebanon (34 percent 
or 1.2 million), Pakistan (20 percent or 28 mil- 
lion), Syria (12 percent or 2 million), Turkey 
(20 percent or 3 million), the United Arab Emi- 
rates (16 percent or about half a million), and 
Yemen (40 percent or 7 million) The great 
majority of the Shiite — about 85 percent — 
belong to the Imarni or Ithashari (Twelver) tra- 
dition. Most of the Imarni Shiites adhere to 
one or other of the senior religious leaders or 
Grand Ayatullahs known as Marjas (“sources” 
of emulation or legal judgement) who act as 
the qualified interpreters of Islamic law. Other 
Shiite communities include the Zaidis in 
Yemen and the Ismailis or Seveners belonging 
to two surviving traditions. These derive from 
the Fatimid caliphate: the Mustalians (known 
in South Asia and East Africa as Bohras) who 
follow the Dai Mutlaq (chief missionary) of 
the Imam-Caliph al-Mustali (d. 1101) and the 
Nizaris, who follow the guidance of the 
Aga Khan, a nobleman of Persian ancestry 
descended from Muhammad b Ismail whom 
they regard as their Living Imam. The Nizaris 
lived in small communities in Syria, Persia, 
inner Asia, and northwestern India until 
migrations to Africa and the West, beginning 
in the nineteenth century. 

Many active Muslims whether Sunnis or 
Shiites adhere to one of the legal traditions 
outlined above. In many countries with Mus- 
lim majorities, however, elements of Islamic 
law (especially laws involving personal status, 
such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance) 
have been incorporated into the legal systems 
of the state. In most Islamic countries the 
modern state — starting with the Ottoman 
Tanzimat reforms that brought Islamic institu- 



tions under progressive state control — has 
eroded the autonomy of the ulania who inter- 
preted, diffused, or administered the Sharia in 
the past. At the same time their religious 
authority, based on the exclusive access to the 
scriptures, has been undermined by the rise of 
secondary education and the spread of litera- 
cy. Many of the Islamist movements are led 
and supported by the beneficiaries of modern 
technical education who have come to Islamic 
teachings directly through primary or second- 
ary texts (the Koran, hadith, and the writings 
of modern ideologues and scholars) rather 
than through the mediation of traditional 
scholarship. 

At first sight the trend toward what might 
be called the laicization or democratization of 
religious authority in Islam could lead to more 
orthodox or standardized versions promoted 
by such organizations as the Saudi-based 
Muslim World League. However, despite the 
attacks of reformers and the religious imperi- 
alism emanating front wealthy but culturally 
conservative oil-producing regions, the mysti- 
cal traditions of Sufism have proved highly 
resilient and adaptive. In Subsaharan Africa 
and many regions of Asia (including the for- 
mer Soviet territories) versions of Islam medi- 
ated through charismatic leaders trained in dis- 
ciplines that supplement (but do not necessari- 
ly replace) the formal religious duties of prayer, 
fasting, almsgiving, and pilgrimage are contin- 
uing to make headway, building on traditions 
that have long been communicated orally or 
through interpersonal relationships. The vari- 
eties of Islamic faith and practice embedded or 
“frozen” in texts are only a part of its rich 
symbolic vocabulary and repertory of mean- 
ings. As the older forms of religious authority 
decay or prove inadequate to address the chal- 
lenges of modernity, other forms of spiritual 
authority and social power emerge. 



Far left: Calling the faithful to 
prayer, a sound that echoes 
across the diverse Muslim world. 



181 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 




•7, 



A 1 a s k ; 



Anchorage 



V ict or i a I si an Id 



b a ?Y/ 



GREENLAND 



XT 



3 / „ v-4 

^ p\ - 









CANADA 



Vancouver • 
Seattle • 



• Edmonton 

• Saskatoon 

.Regina ,^^2 



> Calgary 



Duluth 4 



Quebec 

• Sault Ste-Marie * 

I \ . • Montreal 

Minneapolis * 

Milwaukee * 

Salt Lake City Chicago * 

U N *1 TED STATES 

Kansas City • Cincinnati * 

„ , \ _ / ’w"' . Washington 

OF AMERICA * 



Newfoundland 

• St-John’s 



• Toronto 

Detroit • Boston 

“ Pittsbg. # New York 
— • Philadelphia 
Baltimore 



* Halifax 



Los Angeles • 
San Diego < 



• Atlanta^ 
New Orleans 



• Monterey 

MEXICO 



Mexico City 4 



CUBA DOMINICAN 

HAITI: REPUBLIC 



BELIZE JAMAICA 



HONDURAS 
EL SALVADOR NIC. 

Managua • 

COSTARICA* s , an J° s6 
PANAMA 



Caracas 



VENEZUELA 



GUYANA 



U 



SURINAM 

| FRENCH 

> / GUIANA 



Quito • 

EQUADOR 



ICELAND 

Reykjavik * 



jfcl 

& 

O 

Oslo • 



UNITED 
K I NG DOM 



DEN., 

Copenhagen 

IRELAND RojSi™ B “ K " * 
London* _ GERMAN 



fjperK 




II 

MAURITANIA 



MALI 



NIG 



gT?NT17r fflff ■ i i— it ^ - 

Dakar 

THE GAMBIA i BU ^^ A 

GUINEA-BISSAU GUINEA FASO 

C ° nakry " COTE | jj NIGERI 



sieRRa-ledne < 

LIBERIA «, | 

Abidjan Accra | 
TOGO 



• Lagos 



EQU. 

GUINEA 



REP. CON 



PERU 

Lima • 



BRAZIL 



\ \ 

\ \ 

105° 90° 

\ \ 



• La Paz 

BOLIVIA 

\ 







% 



• Rio de Janeiro 
Sao Paulo 



Santiago 



URUGI 



i-J Buenos Aires , 

ARGENTINA 



1UAY 

w 

Montevideo 



X 

u 



• Punta Arenas 45* 



Muslim population 
in the World today 



■ 


Over 85% 


□ 


Over 50% 


ES3 


Over 20% 


□ 


Over 5% 


□ 


Over 1% 


□ 


Less than 1% 


zz 


Predominantly Shia Muslims 



182 




WORLD DISTRIBUTION OF MUSLIMS 2000 




Nouaya 



SWEDEN 



Helsinki 



-Petersburg 



Stockholm 



Nizhniy 
• Novgorod 



Yekaterinburg 



irnTy^h J 1 

m Minsk 
POLAND BELORUSSIA 
Warsaw 

• Kiev , 

SLOVAKIA UKRAINE * Kharkov # 
HUN. MOLDOVA • Rost™ 

" • Belgrade 



Chelyabinsk 



• Omsk • Novosibirsk 



1 oscow 



• Samara 



Sakhalin 



Volgograd 



KAZAKHSTAN 



Harbin • 



Hokkaido 



BULG. 



• Ankara' 

TURKEY 



TUR Kfy 



KOREA 

tlrSeoul 



JAPAN 

Honshu 

0 Tokyo 

Yokohama 



Kabul • 

AFGHAN. 



Lahore 



LEB. 

ISRAEL 



Chengdu 



• Shanghai 



Wuhan 



^Ahmadabad Dhaka 

Calcutta * | 

INDIA I 1 BURMA 

BANGLA- Z 

Bombay* ~ DESH ( JTX 

* Hyderabad Rangoon* THA j 



.arachi 



Guangzhou 



Hong Kong 



Hainan 



Khartoum 



Manfld 



SUDAN 



Bangalore • .Madras 



Addis 

Ababa 



DJIBOUTI^ 



SRI 

LANKA 



Mindanao 



CENTRAL 

AFRICAN 

REPUBLIC 



BRUNEI 



ALAYS 



UGANDA 



KENYA 



Nairolr 



Borneo 



CONGO 



Kinshasa 



BURUNDI 



PAPUA 

NEW GUINEA 



• Dar es Salaam 



TANZANIA 



EAST TIMOR 



MALAWI 



ANGOLA 



ZIMBABWE 



Maputo 

PAZILAND 



• Brisbane 



SOUTH 



• Durban 



# Sydney 



Cape Town 



Adelaide 



Melbourne 



183 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



World Terrorism 2003 



Far right: The twin towers of the 
World Trade Center in New York 
burn before collapsing on 
September 11th 2001, when two 
hijacked airliners hit the towers 
at the 80th and 95th floors. Most 
of the 3,000 victims, who came 
from more than 100 nations, 
were trapped on the upper floors. 



There are numerous definitions of terrorism but in 
general usage the term refers to illegal armed 
activity by “subnational groups” or “non-state 
actors,” whether supported covertly by state spon- 
sors or operating wholly as freelance guerrilla 
organizations. It is also defined in terms of 
method and purpose. The US, for example, 
defines terrorism as “the calculated use or threat 
of violence to inculcate fear, intended to coerce or 
intimidate governments or societies.” While cer- 
tain kinds of activity such as assassination, kid- 
napping, and hijacking are associated with armed 
insurgents in most parts of the world, the killing of 
civilians by the use of explosive devices is far from 
being confined to non-state agents. Although the 
methods of delivery used by governments and 
“terrorists” may differ, the results may be equally 
brutal. Cluster bombs dropped front the air, for 
example, resemble explosives placed in vehicles or 
on human bodies in the indiscriminate way they 
target civilians. Movements described as “terror- 
ist” by governments typically contest the label and 
usually the legitimacy of the party that uses it. 
Rather than being a description of a type of activ- 
ity, terrorism tends to be used as a term of abuse. 
Governments everywhere denounce armed oppo- 
nents who challenge their monopoly over the use 
of violence as “terrorists,” while insurgents and 
their supporters denounce as “state terrorism” 
methods used by governments, such as “targeted 
killings,” detentions without trial, the use of tor- 
ture, and the destruction of homes belonging to 
suspected insurgents or their families. 

The attacks on New York and Washington on 
September 11th 2001 by Islamists who hijacked 
four civilian airliners and flew two of them into 
the World Trade Center towers in Manhattan, 
causing the death of some three thousand people 
has inevitably created a climate in which terrorism 
has come to be associated with Islamic militancy 



The impression was reinforced after the railway 
attacks in Madrid in March 2004 which killed 
some 200 people and would have killed many 
more if the trains had been running on time. The 
spectacular nature of the New York attacks — 
shown live on television throughout the world — 
placed other conflicts between governments and 
armed insurgents in the shade. In the first years of 
the 21st century, however, many of these conflicts 
were occurring outside the Islamic world. They 
included bloody campaigns against their respec- 
tive governments by Maoists in Nepal, Tamils in 
Sri Lanka (who perfected the technique of suicide 
bombing), Basques in Spain (initally blamed for 
the Madrid bombings), separatists in Corsica, 
rebels belonging to LURD (Liberians United for 
Reconciliation and Democracy) in Liberia, and 
several other conflicts in Central Africa such as in 
the Congo and Rwanda, not to mention the 
decades-long struggle between the Colombian 
government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces 
of Colombia (FARC). However, the “war on ter- 
rorism,” declared by President George W. Bush in 
the aftermath of 9/11, seemed to target Islamic 
groups particularly, along with the Muslim gov- 
ernments (notably Syria, Iran, and Iraq), allegedly 
sponsoring them. In the case of al-Qaeda, the mil- 
itant Islamist network presided over by the Saudi 
dissident Osama bin Laden which took responsi- 
bility for the 9/11 attacks, as well as the attacks on 
the US embassies in East Africa in 1998, and was 
held responsible for several subsequent atrocities 
after 9/11 (including the bombing of two night- 
clubs in Bali, which killed more than 200 people, 
mostly Australian tourists), the US responded with 
military action aimed at “regime change” in two 
countries — Afghanistan and Iraq — which it 
accused of supporting al-Qaeda. While there was 
no question that the Taliban regime in 
Afghanistan, removed in the summer of 2002 after 



184 



WORLD TERRORISM 2003 



a massive US bombing campaign, had hosted bin 
Laden and his inner circle of al-Qaeda operatives, 
the case against the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, 
who fell from power after the Anglo-American 
invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and was captured 
in December, was much less certain. After the fall 
of the regime no evidence was produced that Iraq 
possessed weapons of mass destruction (the offi- 
cial pretext for the war), or that the regime was 
implicated in the attacks of 9/11 as claimed by sen- 
ior members of the US administration. 

Al-Qaeda is a global network with links to 
Islamist movements in several Muslim countries 
and as such has stimulated a global response by 
the US and its allies. Britain and several other 
countries, including Australia, Italy, Spain, and 
Poland, sent military contingents to Iraq. The FBI 
has assisted local security agencies in numerous 
countries. US Special Forces and military advisors 
have been sent to help government forces fight 
Chechen insurgents in Georgia (to protect the 
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline), and the Philip- 
pines, where Islamic separatists of the Moro 
Islamic Liberation Front have been waging an 
armed insurgency on the southern island of Min- 
danao (with support from the al-Qaeda-connect- 
ed Abu Sayyaf group). The US is heavily involved 
in supporting Israel against Islamist Palestinian 
insurgents and has so far failed to pressure Israel 
into abandoning the illegal Jewish settlements in 
the occupied territories for fear of antagonizing 
influential lobbies (Jewish and Christian funda- 
mentalist) in the US. In Uzbekistan the US has 
given unqualified backing to the repressive govern- 
ment of President Islam Karimov who has found it 
expedient to designate the political opposition as 
Islamist “terrorists.” In contrast, in Sudan, where 
a Muslim government had faced a twenty-five year 
insurgency by non-Muslim southerners, the US 
had put its weight behind the rebels of the SPLA 
(Sudan People’s Liberation Army) in order to pres- 
sure a Muslim government into reaching terms. 




In general, Western countries led by the Unit- 
ed States are deploying their superior military 
resources to support existing states, based on 
boundaries drawn up by the colonial powers in 
Africa and Asia, many of which are challenged 
by armed insurgencies. Since a high proportion 
of these challenges come from Muslim groups, 
the “war on terrorism” is seen by many in the 
Muslim world as having a distinctively anti- 
Muslim bias. 



1 85 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 




ICELAND 



Reykjavik 



Anchorage 



Copenh. 



IRELz 



GERMAI 



• Calgary 



Winnipeg 



Vancouver 



Seattle • 



Duluth • 



Portland • 



• Montreal 



Minneapolis 



Halifax 



ITALY 



• Madi 

SPAIN 



PbRTUGAL 
Lisbon • 



San Francisco • 



Los Angeles • 
San Diego 



Rabat 

Casablanca^ 1 



• Atlanta 



• Phoenix 



New Orleans 



Houston 



Miami • 



WESTEJ 

SAHA] 



• Monterey 



CUBA DOMINICAN 

HAITI REPUBLIC 



Mexico City • 



•Puebla 



BELIZE JAMAICA 
HONDURAS 
EL SALVADOR NIC. 

Managua • _ m 

COSTARICA* SanJos6 

PANAMA JMB 



SENEG 

Dakar •, 



GUAT. 



FASO 



NIGERIA 



VENEZUELA 



COTE < i 
1’IVOIRE EjJ 

Edjan* ^ ccr * I 

TOGO 



CAMEROON 

EQU/^] C 



(LOMBIA 



GUINEA 



• Belem 



EQUADOR 



Luanda « 



PERU 



• Salvador 



• Brasilia 



BOLIVIA 



• Belo Horizonte 



URUGUAY 



Santiago • 



Buenos Aires 



Montevideo 



ARGENTINA 



• Punta Arenas 



ALASKA 



Newfoundland 

• St-John’s 



GUYANA 
| SURINAM 

french 

GUIANA 



• Recife 



• Rio de Janeiro 

1 

Sao Paulo 



THE GAMBIA 
GUINEA-BISSAU ^{JINE, 
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libe: 



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World Terrorism 2003 


■ 


Countries where terrorists or 
terrorist groups operate 




Attack by suicide bomber 




Countries with Islam majority 



186 




WORLD TERRORISM 2003 




SWEDEN 



Helsinki , 



Stockholm 



Nizhniy 
• Novgorod 



** .Mil 

POLAND BELORUSS 
Warsaw 



• Yekaterinburg 



Chelyabinsk • 



• Novosibi 



• Omsk 



[ oscow 



Samara 



Sakhalin 



SLOVAKIA UKRAINE 



ROM. 

.Belgrade 



Harbin 



BULG. 



• Ankara 

TURKEY 



KOREA 



S. KOREA 

•Pus 



Kabul • 

AFGHAN. 



(okohama 



LEB. 

ISRAEL* 



IRAN 



Chengdu 



[Shanghai 



Ahmadabad 



Taiwan 



Calcutta • | 

A I BURMA 

BANGLA- 

DESH 

Berabad Rangoon • 



Hong Korig 



‘Hainan 



Bombay 



Khartoum 



THAI. 



Manila" 



Bangkok • 



SUDAN 



CAMB. > 



Madras 



Addis '/DJIBOUTI 
Ababa 



Central 

AFRICAN 

REPUBLIC 



iNKA 



BRUNEI 



AL AY S L 



Borneo 



CONGO 



rwandS 

Burundi 



Kinshasa 



PAPUA 

NEW GUINEA 



• Dar es Salaam 



TANZANIA 



EAST TIMOR 



MALAWI 



ANGOLA 



ZIMBABWE t 



Maputo 

(7AZILAND 



Brisbane 



•urban 



)THO 



Sydney 



Adelaide 



[own 



Melbourne • 



J I f. 

; 'r 


i v 


J \ & 


warn 



187 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Muslim Cinema 



Motion pictures entered Muslim societies soon 
after their emergence in the West and were ini- 
tially introduced to select audiences. Within a 
few months of debuting in Europe in 1896, the 
films of the Lumiere brothers were screened in 
the Arab world to a predominantly elite audi- 
ence. In Egypt, for example, screenings were 



held at the Tousson stock exchange in Alexan- 
dria, and in Morocco at the Royal Palace in Fez. 
In Turkey, private showings were held at the sul- 
tan’s court, the Yildiz Palace in Istanbul. In 
1900, the Iranian monarch Muaffar al-Din 
Shah traveled to France to see the “cinemato- 
graph” and “the magic lantern.” In the same 
year Mirza Ibrahim Khan, his photographer, 
filmed The Flower Ceremony in Belgium and 
produced the first Iranian film. 

The local film industry in these states 
emerged from the efforts of foreigners or minor- 
ity individuals. For example, it was a Romanian 
citizen of Polish origin, Sigmund Weinberg, who 



began public screenings of films at a beer hall in 
Galatasaray Square in Istanbul. In Iran, Ovenes 
Oganians, an Armenian-Iranian, began the 
building of public cinemas in 1905, establishing 
the first film school in 1929 and producing the 
first Iranian feature film in 1930. 

Most parts of Africa and Asia were exposed to 
film as part of the colonial experience. Thus, the 
Arab world provided largely an exotic backdrop 
for Western films. As such, French audiences were 
enamored with North Africa, Palestine attracted 
great interest as the Holy Land, and Egypt was 
intriguing for its ancient history While the colo- 
nial industry produced 200 films in North Africa, 
only perhaps six starred Arab actors. 

The introduction of sound in vernacular 
languages boosted local film production, with 
Egyptian cinema, for example, attracting both 
local investors and audiences by including pop- 
ular Egyptian musicians and singers such as 
Umm Kulthum. Egyptian cinema not only 
became a leading force in other Arab countries 
but also influenced cinema further afield, such 
as the film farsi genre of pre-Revolutionary 
Iran. In most other Arab countries, however, a 
native film industry failed to develop because of 
financial constraints and colonial pressures. 
Most of these countries entered the film indus- 
try after their independence (Lebanon and 
Syria in the 1940s, North Africa in the 1950s 
and early 1960s). 

During the colonial period, films imported 
to the Arab countries were often used instru- 
mentally to promote colonial interests. Even the 
Japanese, during their occupation of Indonesia 
(1942^15), used the burgeoning Indonesian film 
industry to bolster their war efforts. At the same 
time film assisted in the standardization of 
Indonesian as a national language. In the Arab 
world film production took on an increasingly 




188 




MUSLIM CINEMA 



nationalist and socialist bent after independ- 
ence, with states such as Syria, Algeria, and 
Tunisia using the film industry to promote their 
national identity on screen. In Iran, Daryush 
Mehrjui’s prize winning film The Cow and 
Massoud Kimiai’s Qeysar, both produced in 
1969, mark the beginnings of the New Wave, 
Iranian art cinema, after which Iranian films 
gained increasing international acclaim. 
Around the same time, in 1970, Yilmaz Guney’s 
Umut (Hope), also a prize-winning film, 
became a turning point in Turkish cinema and 
marked the New Wave period of Turkish films. 

In Iran, filmmakers faced an uncertain future 
between 1978 and 1982 as a result of, among 
other things, financial instability and govern- 
ment’s lack of interest in cinema during the 
transitional period. With a few exceptions, no 
films of any quality were produced during this 
time. Prior to the revolution, most of the ulama 
either rejected cinema or ignored it. However, 
after the revolution, the Islamists came to recog- 
nize its power and decided to bring it under 
their control. For Khomeini the adoption of 
cinema became an ideological weapon with 
which to combat the pro-Western and imperial- 
ist culture of the Pahlavi regime. By 1989 (the 
year of his death), films like Bayzai’s Bashu, The 
Little Stranger, gained Iranian cinema interna- 
tional acclaim once more. By providing the 
space for an ongoing discourse within society, 
Iranian cinema has become an important medi- 
um in the discourse of change. 

During the 1980s, the Arab states started to 
withdraw from cinema production. The Alger- 
ian film industry went bankrupt while the 
Egyptian one faced a major economic crisis. 
Television and mass video production com- 
pounded this decline in filmmaking across the 
regions. Films in North Africa, Syria, and espe- 
cially Lebanon were coproduced with the West. 
In 1980 the number of films produced in 



Turkey suddenly dropped, though it rose again 
toward the end of the 1980s. 

Most of the states in the region maintain a 
firm control on the film industry, recognizing its 
importance as an agency for change and vehicle 
for protest. In Turkey, for example, this strict 
censorship operates at two levels: that of the 
screenplay and of the finished film. A similar 
process occurs in Indonesia, where censorship is 
applied both before shooting and during editing. 
In Iranian cinema, screening of all final products 
requires state approval. With few exceptions, this 
approval is also required at the postscript stage. 
In most Arab countries, film projects must first 
obtain a shooting license before obtaining other 
licenses from the Ministry of Information or 
other such censorship authority in order to 
ensure their commercial viability 

Mention should be made of Bollywood, the 
Indian cinema industry based in Mumbhai, not 
only because it was heavily imitated in many 
Muslim countries, especially during the initial 
decades, but also because of the significant 
presence of Muslims as scriptwriters, produc- 
ers, musicians, and actors. There is also a genre 
known as the Shahenshah (king of kings), 
which goes back to Tukar (1939), a film about 
the Mughal emperor Jehangir. It is regarded as 
the first notable “Muslim social film.” While 
the latter continued to surface in other films 
such as Mughal-e-Azam, in later productions 
the Muslim social presence took on a less regal 
character, dealing mainly with the North Indi- 
an Muslim middle class. This genre gradually 
declined after the 1970s. Finally, after a notable 
absence, with less than forty full-length films 
and shorts, Afghanistan rejoined the world cin- 
ema stage with Osama (2003), a co-production 
of Afghanistan, Japan, and Ireland. The first 
feature from post-Taliban Afghanistan, it was 
screened at various international film festivals 
including Cannes and London. 



Far left: Iranian director Samira 
Makhmalbaf poses for 
photographers after being 
awarded the Jury prize for the 
film Panj E Asr ( Five in the 
Afternoon) , during the closing 
ceremony of the 56th Cannes 
film festival in May 2003. The 
daughter of acclaimed director 
Mohsen Makhmalbaf made her 
first film, The Apple (1998), 
when she was only 18. The 
Blackboard (2000), a film about 
Kurdish refugees on the Iran-lraq 
border, also won a Jury prize at 
Cannes. 



189 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Internet Use 



Before the digital age Islamic questions were 
often addressed locally with the ularna, the 
acknowledged interpreters of the tradition, 
acting as the primary agents of religious 
authority. In the Sunni world the spread of 
literacy and secondary education was erod- 
ing this primacy even before the appearance 
of the World Wide Web. The Internet is 
accelerating this process by facilitating the 
individual exercise of ijtihad (independent 
judgment based on the primary sources of 
Koran and hadith). Once the exclusive 
preserve of qualified scholars, this devel- 
opment is eroding traditional hierarchies 
of learning. 

Muslim websurfers do not have to con- 
sult Koranic concordances or weighty 
books of fiqh (jurisprudence) to arrive at 
judgments but can simply access the 
sources online by scanning the Koran or 
collections of hadith (reports of the 
Prophet Muhammad’s sayings or actions) 
using keywords. Alternatively they can e- 
rnail their questions to the hundreds of 
websites offering social, moral, religious, 
and in some cases, political guidance. 
With many of the best funded websites 
based in Saudi Arabia or the Gulf, the 
answers often have a conservative charac- 
ter and may not always be sensitive to the 
questioner’s social or economic circum- 
stances. For example, the answers to ques- 
tions from young women living in North 
America about how to deal with abusive 
parents may stress the importance of filial 
duty over their rights as citizens. 

For Shiites in the Twelver or Ithnashari 
tradition, for whom clerics rather than 
texts are the primary dispensers of 
authority, the Web provides access to rul- 



ings by living marjas (sources of imitation/ 
emulation) such as Grand Ayatullah Sistani, 
the leading marja in Iraq. Web pages on this 
site cover contemporary concerns such as 
credit cards, insurance, copyright, autop- 
sies, and organ donation, as well as advice 
about religious duties. Some Sufi orders 
maintain websites detailing the spiritual lin- 
eages of their shaikhs and transcripts of spe- 
cial prayer and dhikr (rituals of remem- 
brance) practices. However, since many Sufi 



CZECH. 



t 



AUS. 






PORT. * Madrid 

SPAIN 

Lisbon* 



HUN. 
ograd • 

\ /YUG. 

H lk 

'<+ ALB. 



Algiers* 



Rabat# 






Tripoli 



* 



WESTERN 

SAHARA 



MAURITANIA 



SENEGAL 

Dakar* 



GUINEA 

Conakry 



IVORY GHANA NIGERIA 
COAST # r a „ os CENTRAL 

Lagos > AFRICAN 



LIBERIA • 

Abidjan JAccra | 
TOGO 



O REPUBLIC 




GABON $ 



/ 



190 



INTERNET USE 



practices are closed to outsiders, only the 
more orthodox orders maintain sites. Politi- 
cal Islam is widely represented, with most 
political parties, including Islamist ones, 
accessible through their websites. Opposi- 
tion forces are also represented, although in 
some cases access to banned groups is 
restricted by governmental controls. Islamic 
women’s groups are active in cyberspace 
countering patriarchal practices such as 
those promulgated by the former Taliban 
regime in Afghanistan in the name of “true” 
Islamic teachings. With access to the Inter- 



net spreading rapidly throughout the Mus- 
lim world, the long-term effects are ambigu- 
ous. On the one hand a “universal” Islamic 
discourse is emerging that transcends the 
local traditions, including even the main- 
stream traditions represented by institutions 
such as Cairo’s al-Azhar. On the other hand, 
the emerging discourse cannot avoid accom- 
modating diversity and dissent, as minori- 
ties and splinter-groups are able to challenge 
mainstream opinion in cultures where reli- 
gious and political pluralism have often been 
repressed. 




Kharkov 



UKRAINE 



MOLD. 



Harbin 



KYRGYZ. 



AZA. ARM. 



TURKMf^ 



N. KOREA 

("•Seoul 
S. KOREA 



Tehran 



Kabul 



AFGHANISTAN, 



Lahore 



IRAN 



Chengdu 



Shanghai 



Wuhan 



Chongqing" 



Karachi 



Riyadh 



Ahmadabad 



Taiwan 



Dhaka 



Guangzhou • 



Calcutta? 



Hong Kong 



BURMA 



BANGLA- 

DESH 



Hainan 



Bombay* 



Luzon 



Hyderabad 



Rangoon 



THAILAND 



Khartoum 



Manila* 



Bangalore 



• Madras 



CAMB. 



Addis 
Ababa • 



Telephone Lines 
per 100 people 2001 



SRI 

LANKA 



70 or more 



UGANDA 



KENYA 



Borneo 



Sumatra 



' west 



INDIAN OCEAN 



es Salaam 



Under 1 



ROM. 



BULG. 

GEORG. 

• Istanbul 

* Ankara 
TURKEY 

"Athens 
GREECE 

' SYRIA 

( Baghdad 

Alexandri^Wf^ IRA Q 

~ • JORDAN 

Cairo J 






PACIFIC 

OCEAN 



CONGO 

TANZANIA 

•Da 



P H I L I P P I N E S 
Mindanao 



Timor 



191 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Democracy, Censorship, Human Rights, and Civil Society 



Western scholars define democracy as a 
method for protecting the civil and political 
rights of the individual, providing for freedom 
of speech, the press, faith, opinion, ownership, 
and assembly, as well as the right to vote, nom- 
inate and seek public office. Muslim traditions 
of democracy exist in the Arabian concept of 
shura (counsel based on participatory discus- 
sion), harking back to the Bedouin system 
where the shaikh was primus inter pares. 

When the Ottoman Empire was divided into 
separate nation-states after the First World 
War, several attempts were made to introduce 
systems of democratic rule. Most of them were 
unsuccessful, discredited by rigged elections or 
manipulation by powerful interest groups. 
Multiparty systems were replaced by single 
party systems, by military governments, or by a 
combination of both. However, the revolution- 
ary models borrowed from Eastern Europe 
proved no less susceptible to manipulation by 
vested interests or groups whose asabiyya (col- 
lective solidarity) was rooted in combinations 
of kinship and sectarian allegiance. In the Mus- 
lim world lying beyond the former Ottoman 
domains, the position is not greatly different. 
Of the fifty-odd Muslim-majority states 
belonging to the Organization of the Islamic 
Conference only Turkey can be described as an 
established democracy — although it has a his- 
tory of political manipulation by the military 
who regard themselves as guardians of the sec- 
ular tradition bequeathed by the founder of 
modern Turkey, Kemal Atatiirk. Other coun- 
tries, including Malaysia, Indonesia, and Jor- 
dan, have been described as transitional or 
uncertain democracies, and Pakistan has 
enjoyed periods of democratic rule in between 
bouts of military government. 

In the context of human rights generally the 



situation is broadly similar, given that two of 
the fundamental human rights embedded in 
such documents as the Universal Declaration of 
Human Rights and the International Covenant 
on Civil and Political Rights — the rights of 
peaceful assembly and freedom or expression — 
are prerequisites for all forms of democratic 
government. 

For example, in the Index of Human Rights 
compiled by Charles Humana in 1991, Muslim 
majority countries consistently scored below 
the world average of 62 percent, with Iraq at 17 
percent at the bottom of the world league table 
(a distinction it shared with Myanmar) and 
Sudan with 18 percent, a close second. At 65 
percent Jordan alone remains above the world 
average, though Tunisia (with 60 percent) and 
Malaysia (61 percent) are close to it. Critics of 
Humana’s system object that his methodology 
is culturally loaded with Western liberal values, 
that women in Islamic countries, for example, 
do not require the same protection as women in 
Western countries and that female inheritance 
and property rights were instituted by the 
Sharia more than a millennium before they 
were introduced in the West. Such cultural rela- 
tivism, however, is often opposed by women’s 
organizations inside Muslim countries, which 
campaign to eliminate discriminatory provi- 
sions in personal status codes with respect to 
legal status, marriage, divorce, child custody, 
and inheritance. Women’s organizations have 
also campaigned against the reduced sentences 
passed by courts in cases of “honor killings” 
where victims are held to have “provoked” 
attacks by male relatives by transgressing tradi- 
tional codes of sexual conduct, and against 
laws that prevent them from passing on their 
nationalities to their children. 

Freedom of speech as exemplified by a free 



192 



DEMOCRACY, CENSORSHIP, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND CIVIL SOCIETY 



press is also conspicuously absent in most Mus- 
lim countries, though restrictions vary from 
one state to another. Opposition forces, includ- 
ing Islamists, protest against measures which 
muzzle them politically. Islamists themselves, 
however, have demonstrated their opposition to 
unrestricted freedom of speech by attacks on 
writers they regard as critical of Islam, includ- 
ing Farag Foda (assassinated in 1992), the 
Nobel laureate Neguib Mahfouz, Egypt’s fore- 
most novelist, physically attacked and injured 
by the same assassin, and Nasr Abu Zaid, an 
Egyptian scholar who was forced into exile for 
applying historical-critical methods in inter- 
preting the Koran. 

The “war on terrorism” launched by the US 
administration in the wake of the September 
11 attacks on New York and Washington, 
which overthrew the governments in Afghan- 
istan and Iraq, led to a curtailment of civil 
liberties in the United States. There the US 
Patriot Act permitted the indefinite detention 
of terrorist suspects and the administrative 
detention of jihadis (some of them barely older 
than children) accused of fighting for the Tal- 
iban regime in Afghanistan. At the same time 
the neoconservatives running the administra- 
tion stated that their aim was to bring to coun- 
tries such as Iraq and Afghanistan Western 
standards of democracy, good governance, the 
rule of law, human rights, and women’s rights. 
Many people in the Muslim world, however, 
doubted whether such standards could be insti- 
tuted as a result of military action. Both in the 
Arab and the wider Islamic world the incum- 
bent regimes and their Islamist opponents 
would argue that the indigenous tradition of 
shura, combined with that of baya (obedience 
to an established ruler) provided a better 
model for stability, whereas Western-style plu- 
ralism was a recipe for fitna (strife). 

Both the ruling authorities in countries such 



as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Sudan, and the 
Islamists who sometimes oppose them, argue 
that safeguards enshrined in the Koran are just 
as valid as those protected by Western law. 
They hold that the public and private spheres 
are both subject to the law and that secularism 
is alien to their history. The proponents of 
democracy, however, who include some leading 
Islamist thinkers as well as the advocates of sec- 
ular liberalism, believe that such arguments are 
simply being used as strategies for retaining 
power. In the aftermath of “9/11” and the wars 
in Afghanistan and Iraq, avenues for peaceful 
political change have been closed off, leaving 
people to choose between tolerating the status 
quo, exile (for those who can manage it), or 
violence. Critics of the West point out that it 
has tacitly accepted this pattern of repression 
for reasons of expediency, and in the case of the 
oil-bearing regions of western Asia, to protect 
its energy supplies. 



Islamic version of democracy 
dates back to the concept of the 
shura ( participatory discussion). 
However, the Western ideal of 
the popular vote by the adult 
population is not available in 
many Muslim majority states. 




193 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Modern Islamic Movements 



Far right: In this computer 
graphic illustration, Mamoun 
Sakkal has produced an image 
which reflects, through its lively 
composition, the great variety of 
Islamic religious ideas. In the 3- 
dimensional Kufic script the 
Islamic shahada (creed) reads, 
“ There is no god but God and 
Muhammad is the messenger of 
God. ” 



The terms “Islamism” and “Islamist” have 
come to be used for political movements and 
their supporters, which aim for the establish- 
ment or restoration of Islamic states based on 
the rule of the Islamic Sharia law. The term 
“Islamists” is an English translation to the Ara- 
bic word islamiyyun — a term the movement’s 
advocates use to distinguish themselves from 
muslimun — ordinary Muslim believers. All 
Islamists believe that Islam is the solution to 
contemporary problems of Muslim states. 
Although the numerous Islamist groups that 
mushroomed and spread throughout the Mus- 
lim world during the last three decades of the 
twentieth century differ among themselves on 
the details of how Islamic states should be run, 
nearly all are agreed that the return to God 
includes the rejection of the cultures of Western 
materialism and hedonism (exemplified by sex- 
ual permissiveness) and the duty to support fel- 
low Muslims in conflict with non-Muslims in 
places such as Palestine or Kashmir, though not 
all Islamists support terrorist actions. 

The ground for the Islamist movements was 
prepared by the reformist and salafiyya move- 
ments in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- 
turies, which had sought to purge Islamic belief 
and ritual from the accretions and innovations 
acquired over the centuries, particularly the 
cults surrounding the Sufi walis (saints), living 
and dead. An Islam pruned of its medieval 
accretions was better able to confront the chal- 
lenge of foreign power than a local cult bound- 
ed by the intercessionary power of a particular 
saint or family of saints. The modern Islamist 
movement, however, is usually traced back to 
the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 by 
Hasan al-Banna, an Egyptian schoolteacher. 
The Brotherhood’s original aims were moral as 
much as political: it sought to reform society by 



encouraging Islamic observance and opposing 
Western cultural influences, rather than by 
attempting to capture the state by direct politi- 
cal action. However, during the mounting cri- 
sis over Palestine during and after the Second 
World War, the Brotherhood became increas- 
ingly radicalized. It played a leading part in the 
disturbances that led to the overthrow of the 
monarchy in 1952 but after the revolution it 
came into increasing conflict with the national- 
ist government of Jamal Abd al-Nasser. In 
1954, after an attempt on Nasser’s life, the 
Brotherhood was suppressed, its members 
imprisoned, exiled, or driven underground. 
(Banna himself had been murdered in 1949 by 
the intelligence services of the old regime.) 
After its suppression, the Brotherhood became 
internationalized, with affiliated movements 
springing up in Jordan, Syria, Sudan, Pakistan, 
Indonesia, and Malaysia. The Brotherhood 
found refuge in Saudi Arabia under the Amir 
(later King) Faisal ibn Abd al-Aziz, as well as 
political and financial support, with funds for 
the Egyptian underground and salaried posts 
for exiled intellectuals. 

A radical member of the Brotherhood, 
Sayyid Qutb, executed in 1966 for an alleged 
plot to overthrow the Egyptian government, 
proved to be the movement’s most influential 
theorist, although some of his ideas were 
influenced by the Indian scholar and journal- 
ist Abu al-Ala al-Maududi (1906-79). One of 
Maududi’s doctrines, in particular, would 
have a major impact on Islamic political move- 
ment. He believed that the struggle for Islam 
was not for the restoration of an ideal past, 
but for a principle vital to the here and now: 
the vice-regency of man under God’s sover- 
eignty. The jihad was not just a defensive war 
for the protection of the Islamic territory. It 



194 



MODERN ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS 



might be waged against governments which 
prevented the preaching of true (i.e., the 
Islamist version of) Islam. Taking his cue from 
Maududi, Qutb likened contemporary Islamic 
society to the jahiliyya, the “state of igno- 
rance” prevailing in Arabia against which the 
Prophet himself inveighed and fought. 

In most Sunni countries the Brotherhood 
and its offshoots can be divided into a main- 
stream tendency that will work within the 
frame of existing governmental systems, 
where permitted, and is also engaged in social 
welfare work, and a radical or extremists ten- 
dency that seeks to achieve its aims by vio- 
lence. However the lines dividing the extrem- 
ists from the mainstream are not always clear. 
Violence is interactive and in many cases, such 
as the atrocities perpetrated by Islamist terror- 
ists in India, Israel-Palestine, and Egypt, it 
may be seen as a response to that inflicted on 
the Islamists by governments which themselves 
use violence, including torture and “targeted 
killings,” to repress or destroy opposition. 
Where opportunities for political participa- 
tion have been available, as in Jordan, Yemen, 
Kuwait, and Malaysia, the level of violence 
has been notably less than, for example, in 
Israel-Palestine or Algeria. In Egypt violence 
by extremist factions of the Islamic Associa- 
tions, including attacks on tourists, seriously 
alienated the mass of public opinion, not least 
because millions of Egyptians are dependent 
on tourism for their livelihoods. 

There remains, however, a hard core of 
Islamist militants who are committed to the 
“liberation” of Muslim lands from “infidel” 
rule, regardless of circumstances. This arm of 
the movement, inspired by the writings of 
Sayyid Qutb and the fiery rhetoric of Abdul- 
lah Azam — one time mentor of the Saudi dis- 
sident Osama bin Laden — gained momentum 
during the American- and Pakistani-backed 



jihad against the Soviet occupation in 
Afghanistan (1979-89) when thousands of vol- 
unteers received training in methods of irregu- 
lar warfare. Fired by what they see as their 
divinely supported victory in Afghanistan, the 
militants aim to “liberate” all lands that were 
once Islamic (including Spain) from rule by 
non-Muslims or by unjust “infidel” govern- 
ments (by which they mean most existing 




Muslim states). Since they see Western finan- 
cial and military support as a primary factor 
in the survival of “non-Islamic” regimes, they 
have not hesitated to take their jihad into the 
heart of Western power. 



19S 




HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Chronology 



c. 570-622 

622-632 

632-634 

634-644 

644-656 

656-661 
660, 668, 712 
661 

680 



685-705 

687-691 

711 

712-713 

728 

732 

744-750 

756 

765 

767 

786-809 

795 

801 

813-833 

820 

847-861 

861-945 

855 

870 

873 

873-940 

874 
909 



Muhammad in Mecca. 

Muhammad in Medina. 

Caliphate of Abu Bakr. Muslims triumph in wars of 
apostasy. Arabia unified. 

Caliphate of Umar. Most of Fertile Crescent, Egypt, and 
much of Iran conquered. Expansion into North Africa. 
Caliphate of Uthman. Conquests continue 
northward, eastward, and westward 
Text of the Koran collected and standardized. 

First fitna or civil war during caliphate of Ali. 

Arabs fail to capture Constantinople. 

Murder of Ali. Establishment of Umayyad caliphate 
by Muawiya in Damascus. 

Second fitna. Muawiya’s succession by his son Yazid 
provokes rebellion by Hussein b. Ali. “Martyrdom” 
of Hussein and followers at Karbala. 

Reign of Abd al-Malik, builder of the Dome of the 
Rock in Jerusalem. 

Kharijis prevail in much of Arabia. 

Arabs advance into Spain. 

Arabs conquer Transoxiana (Bukhara and 
Samarkand). 

Death of Hasan al-Basri, early Sufi master. 

Battle of Poitiers: Charles Martel checks Arab 
advance into France. 

Third fitna. Weakened by internal dissent, Umayyad 
dynasty overthrown by Abbasids (749). 

Umayyad rule established in Spain. 

Death of Jafar al-Sadiq, sixth Iman of the Shiite. 
Movement divided between Ismailis, Ithnaasharis 
(“Twelvers”) and Zaidis. 

Death of Abu Hanifa (b. 699), founder of the Hanafi 
legal school. 

Reign of Harun al-Rashid, model caliph of Islam’s 
“golden age.” 

Death of Malik b. Anas (b. 713), founder of the 
Maliki school. 

Death of Rabia of Basra, mystic and poet. 

Caliphate of al-Mamun. Ascendancy of Mutazili 
(“rationalist”) school of theologians. 

Death of al-Shafi (b. 767), founder of the Shafi 
school of law. 

Caliphate of al-Mutawakkil, who reverses pro- 
Mutazili policy. 

Breakup of Abbasid Empire as provinces become 
independent until caliphate government loses 
territorial power completely. 

Death of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (b. 780), founder of 
Hanbali school. 

Death of al-Bukhari (b. 810), hadith collector. 

Death of Muslim (hadith collector). 
“Disappearance” of 12th Imam of the Shiite, 
Muhammad al-Muntazar (the “Awaited One”). 
Lesser ghaiba or Absence during which Imam of 
Twelver Shiite is represented by Four ivakils 
(deputies). 

Death of Abu Yazid al-Bistami, first of the 
“drunken” Sufis. 

Creation of first Ismaili Fatimid state in Ifriqiya 



(present-day Tunisia). 



922 


Execution of al-Hallaj for heresy, a martyr for later Sufis. 


929-961 


Umayyad ruler Abd al-Rahman III establishes 
Umayyad caliphate at Cordoba (Spain). 


940 


Beginning of the Greater ghayba (absence or 
occultation) when Twelvers lose contact with their 
Imam. 


945 


Shii Buyids take Baghdad, making caliph a virtual 
prisoner. 


969-1171 


Fatimid (Ismaili) caliphate in Egypt. 


998-1030 


Mahmud of Ghazna (present-day Afghanistan) 
invades northern India. 


1037-1220 


Saljuq Turks, starting in central Iran and moving 
westward, restore Sunni orthodoxy to the heartlands. 


1056-1167 


Almoravid dynasty, originating in Subsaharan Africa, 
halts Christian advance in Spain. 


1071 


Saljuqs defeat Byzantines at Battle of Manzikert, 
opening Anatolia to Turkish settlement. 


1090-1118 


Nizari Ismaili uprisings against Sunni caliphs. 


1091 


Saljuqs make Baghdad their capital. 


1096-1291 


Crusaders hold parts of Syria and Palestine. 


1099 


Crusaders take Jerusalem. 


1111 


Death of al-Ghazali (b. 1058), Sunni mystic and 
theologian. 


1130 


Death of Ibn Tumart, founder of Almohad dynasty 
in Spain. 


1187 


Saladin (Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi) expels Crusaders 
front Jerusalem. 


1198 


Death of Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (b. 1126), philosopher. 


1205-87 


Rise of Delhi Sultanate in India. 


1220-31 


Mongol raids in Transoxiana and eastern Iran cause 
massive destruction of cities 


1225 


Almohads abandon Spain. Muslim presence reduced 
to small kingdom of Granada (1232-1592). 


1227 


Death of Chingiz Khan. 


1240 


Death of Ibn Arabi (b. 1165), Sufi theosophist. 


1256 


Fall of Alamut, last Ismaili stronghold south of the 
Caspian Sea. 


1258 


Destruction of Baghdad by Mongols. 


1260 


Mamluks (military slaves) who succeed the Ayyubids 
in Egypt, defeat the hitherto invincible Mongols at 
the Battle of Ain Jalut in Syria. 


c. 1300 


Emergence of Ottoman (Osmanli) dynasty in Bithynia 
on the Byzantine frontier in western Anatolia. 


1326 


Ottomans capture Bursa, their first real capital. 


1362 


Ottomans capture Adrianople (Edirne) in Balkans. 


c. 1378 


Emergence of Timur Lenk (Tamerlane) a Turk who 
rose in the Mongol service in Transoxiana to conquer 
much of central and western Asia. 


1389 


Ottomans defeat Serbs, assisted by Albanians, 
Bulgarians, Bosnians, and Hungarians, at Kosovo in 
central Serbia. 


1405 


Death of Timur. 


1453 


Mehmed “The Conqueror” (1451—81) captures 
Constantinople and subdues Byzantine Empire. 


1498 


Vasco da Gama rounds the Cape of Good Hope, 
ending Muslim monopoly of Indian Ocean trade. 


1501 


Rise of Safavid power in Iran. Twelver Shiism 
becomes the state religion. 



196 



CHRONOLOGY 



1517 


Ottomans conquer Egypt and Syria. 




1526 


Battle of Paniput (India) enables Babur, a Timurid 
prince, to become founder of the Mughal Empire; 
Battle of Mohacs makes Catholic Hungarians 
tributaries of Ottomans. 


1889 


1529 


Ottomans besiege Vienna. 




1552 


Kazan Khanate annexed by Moscow. 


1897 


1556-1605 


Reign of Akbar, third Mughal emperor, who fosters 






Hindu-Muslim cultural and religious rapprochement. 


1898 


1682-99 


Ottomans lose Hungary and Belgrade in war with 
Austria and Poland. 




1718 


Peace of Passarowitz consolidates Ottoman losses to 
Habsburgs. 




1739 


Delhi sacked by Iranian monarch Nadir Shah, ending 






effective Mughal power. 


1905 


1757 


Wahhabis take al-Hasa in eastern Arabia. British 






victory at Plassey opens India to British expansion. 


1906 


1762 


Death of Shah Wali Allah, Indian Sufi reformer in 


1906-08 




Sirhindi tradition. 


1908 


1774 


Treaty of Kuchuk Kaynarji. Following defeat by 






Russia, Ottomans lose Crimea. Tsar recognized as 
protector of Orthodox Christians in Ottoman lands. 


1909 


1779 


Qajar dynasty established in Iran. 


1911-13 


1789-1807 


First Westernizing Ottoman reforms under Selim III. 


1912 


1798 


Napoleon Bonaparte lands in Egypt, defeats the 
Mamluks at the Battle of the Pyramids, generates 


1914-18 




interest in European culture. 


1916-18 


1805-48 


Muhammad (Mehmed) Ali begins modernizing 
process in Egypt. 




1806 


Wahhabis sack Shiite shrines of Najaf and Karbala. 


1917 


1815-17 


Serbian revolt against Ottomans. 




1818 


Britain becomes paramount power in India. 


1917-20 


1820 


Muhammad Ali begins conquest of Sudan. 




1821-30 


Greek War of Independence. 




1830 


French occupation of Algeria begins. Khartoum 
founded as British-Egyptian outpost on the Upper Nile. 




1832-48 


European powers save Ottoman Empire from 
invasion by Egyptian Viceroy, Muhammad Ali. 




c. 1839-61 


Failure of Indian “Mutiny” leads to abolition of the 






East India Company, opening the way for 
incorporation of India into British Empire. 


1919 


1859 


Defeat of Imam Shamil in Caucasus followed by 
Russian annexation of Chechnya and Daghestan. 




1867 


Foundation of the academy of Deoband in northern 
India by a group of the reformers who eschew 
contact with the British. 




1868 


Russian annexation of Kazakhstan completed. 
Amirate of Bukhara becomes Russian protectorate. 




1869 


Opening of the Suez Canal. 




1875 


Collapse of Egyptian finances. Suez Canal sold to 
British. 




1876 


First Ottoman constitution promulgated after palace 
revolution. 




1876-1909 


Sultan Abd al-Hamid suspends constitution, enacting 
major reforms in education, transportation, and 
communications through dictatorial rule. 


1919-22 


1881 


French protectorate in Tunisia. 


1923 


1882 


British occupation of Egypt. 


1885 


General “Chinese” Gordon killed in Khartoum during 





Mahdist revolt against British-backed Egyptian rule. 
Return of Muhammad Abduh, al-Afghani’s disciple 
to Egypt, who decides to collaborate with the British. 
Military students in Istanbul found first “Young 
Turk” revolutionary organization. Society of Union 
and Progress. 

Death of Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (b. 1838), 
pan-Islamic reformer and activist. 

Defeat of the Mahdist movement by an Anglo- 
Egyptian force under General Kitchener at the Battle 
of Omdurman. 

Death of Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan (b. 1817), Islamic 
modernist reformer and founder of Aligarh College 
(1875). 

Death of Muhammad Abduh (b. 1849), founder of 
the modern salafiyya reform movement. 

Muslim League founded in India. 

Constitutional Revolution in Iran. 

Young Turk revolution forces sultan to restore 
constitution and reconvene parliament. 

Separate Muslim and Hindu provincial electorates in 
India. 

Italy takes Tripoli from Ottomans. 

French protectorate in Morocco. 

Defeat of Ottoman Empire in First World War. Egypt 
formally declared British Protectorate. 

British-backed Arab revolt against Turkish rule under 
leadership of Sharif Hussein of Mecca, his son 
Faisal, and Colonel T. E. Lawrence. 

Balfour Declaration opens the way for increased 
European Jewish settlement in Palestine. 

Russian Revolution and civil war leads to 
Soviet— Muslim conflicts in Central Asia. Muslims of 
Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and the Caucasus struggle 
for regional independence. Overthrow of Autonomous 
Republic of Turkestan by Russian forces (1918) 
precipitates Basmachi revolt. Bukhara and Khiva 
absorbed into Soviet states. Some leading Muslim 
Jadidists (renovators) join the Communist Party. 

San Remo Conference. League of Nations Mandates 
awarded to Britain in former Ottoman territories of 
Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq, and to France in 
Syria and Lebanon. 

Faisal b. Hussein expelled by French from Damascus 
and established on throne of Iraq. His younger 
brother, Abdullah, established on throne of 
Transjordan. 

Egyptian leader Saad Zaghlul leads wafd (delegation) 
demanding independence for Egypt. His deportation 
sparks nationalist “revolution.” 

Ottoman suzerainty abolished in Egypt. Britain keeps 
control of defense, foreign policy, Sudan, and the 
Suez Canal. 

Turkish War of Independence: Mustafa Kemal 
(Atatiirk) rallies nationalist forces to defeat Greek 
invaders and resist European dismemberment of 
Anatolia. 

Treaty of Lausanne ensures Turkey’s territorial 
integrity. 



197 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



1924 


Soviet Central Asia reorganized under socialist 
republics of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, 
and Kirgizia. 


1958 


Pro-British Iraqi monarchy overthrown in bloody 
coup d’etat masterminded by General Abd al-Karim 
Qasim. 




Ottoman Caliphate abolished. Turkish Sharia courts 
replaced by civil courts. 

Khilafat movement in India blames British for 
abolition. Ibn Saud conquers Hejaz, expelling the 


1963 


Execution in Egypt of Sayyid Qutb, writer and 
Muslim Brotherhood’s most militant ideologist. 
Iraq’s President Qasim overthrown in coup by 
Baathist military officers under Abd al-Salam Arif. 




Sharif Hussein and establishing neo-Wahhabi 


1965 


Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) founded. 




kingdom. 


1967 


(June) The Six Day War leaves the whole of the Sinai 


1926 


Lebanon enlarged and detached from Syria under 
French auspices. 




peninsula, the West Bank (including the Old City of 
Jerusalem), and the Syrian Golan Heights under 


1928 


Hasan al-Banna, Egyptian schoolteacher, founds the 
Muslim Brotherhood. 




Israeli military control. 

Yassir Arafat (Abu Ammar), commander of al-Fatah, 


1932 


Iraq granted independence and admitted to League 
of Nations. 




the largest guerrilla organization, becomes leader of 
the PLO. 


1935 


Death of Rashid Rida (b. 1865), Islamic reformer and 
leader of the salafiyya movement. 


1968 


President Abd al-Rahman Arif (brother and 
successor of Abd al-Salam) overthrown by General 


1936 


Palestinians revolt against British rule in Palestine 
and the increase in Jewish immigration caused by 




Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. Real power held by Saddam 
Hussein al-Tikriti. 




Nazi rule in Germany. Muhammad Ali Jinnah 
assumes leadership of Muslim League, ending 
Muslim backing for Congress. 

New Soviet Constitution organizes Muslim Central 
Asia into six Union Soviet Socialist Republics 
(Uzbekishan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, 
Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kirgizia) and eight 


1969 


Pro-British Sanusi monarchy in Libya overthrown in 
Nasser-style coup d’etat led by 27-year-old Colonel 
Muammar al-Qadhafi. 

Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) 
established to promote Islamic solidarity and foster 
political, economic, social, and cultural cooperation 
among Muslim states. 




Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics including 
Tataristan, Bashkiria, Daghestan, and other 
Caucasian units under communist control. 


1970 


Hafez al-Asad, an air force general from the Alawi 
(Nusairi) minority, takes power in Syria at the head 
of the Baath Party. 


1938 


Death of Muhammad Iqbal, poet, philosopher, and 
progenitor of Pakistan. 




Civil war in Jordan between the army and Palestinian 
guerrillas (“Black September”). 


1940-47 


Muslim League adopts idea of separate Muslim 
states for Indian Muslims. 




Anwar al-Sadat succeeds to the Egyptian presidency 
following the death of Abd al-Nasser. 


1941 


British suppress pro- Axis revolt by Iraqi army officers. 


1972 


Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, wins 


1942 


British force Egyptian King Farouq to replace pro- 




independence with Indian army help. 




Axis prime minister with one more amenable to the 
Allied cause. 


1973 


October (Ramadan/Yom Kippur) War. Egypt 
establishes a bridgehead on the East Bank of the Suez 


1943 


Beginning of Zionist terror campaign against British 
in Palestine 




Canal — the first major success of Arab arms against 
Israel. 


1945 


Arab League founded. 




Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries 


1946 


Transjordan, Lebanon, and Syria recognized as 
independent. Widespread Hindu-Muslim rioting in 
India. 




(OPEC) under the leadership of Iran and Saudi 
Arabia imposes a four-fold increase in the price of 
crude oil, leading to massive “petrodollar” surpluses 


1947 


Indian independence. Creation of Pakistan out of 
Muslim majority areas, excepting Kashmir. 




for investment in industrialized economies and 
support for Islamic movements (as well as worldwide 


1948 


British end mandate in Palestine. Arab armies routed 




economic recession). 




following proclamation of Israel. Palestinian exodus 
creates massive refugee problem. Amir Abdullah of 
Transjordan annexes east Jerusalem (including the 


1975 


Lebanese civil war provoked, in part, by presence of 
militant Palestinian refugees and Israeli reprisals 
against them. 




Old City and the West Bank). Egyptian prime 
minister Muhammad Nuqrashi assassinated. 


1977 


Beginning of negotiations between Egypt and Israel. 
Zia ul-Haqq, Pakistani general, assumes presidency 


1949 


Hasan al-Banna assassinated by Egyptian security 
agents in retaliation for the murder of Nuqrashi. 




and imposes martial law. Former President Zulfiqar 
Ali Bhutto executed. Zia initiates Islamization 


1952 


Egyptian monarchy overthrown by Arab nationalist 
army officers led by Gamal Abd al-Nasser with 
support from the Muslim Brotherhood. 




program. 

Death of Ali Shariati (b. 1933), Islamist philosopher, 
in Southampton, Britain. 


1956 


Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal, provoking 
Anglo-French military intervention in secret 


1978-79 


Growing unrest in Iran against dictatorship of Shah 
Muhammad Reza Pahlavi. 




collusion with Israel. 


1979 


Ayatollah Khomeini returns from exile in Europe to 



198 



CHRONOLOGY 



1980- 

1981 

1982 

1987 

1988 



1989 



1990 

1991 



establish the Islamic Republic in Iran. Fifty-two US 
diplomats taken hostage and held for 444 days. 

Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel 
begin the peace process between Arabs and Israelis. 
Death of Abu al Ala al-Mawdudi (b. 1909), Indo- 
Pakistani ideologue and founder of the Jamaati-i-Islami. 
President Zia al-Haqq introduces Hudood ordinance, 
prescribing Koranic penalties for certain categories of 
theft, sexual misconduct, and drinking alcohol. 

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of ailing 
communist regime. Western training and armaments 
for the mujahidin (holy warriors) creates a well- 
trained cadre of Islamist militants. 

88 Iran-Iraq war, provoked by Iraqi attack on Iran, 

becomes the longest-lasting international conflict of 
the twentieth century, leading to the loss of at least 
half a million lives on the Iranian side and massive 
economic dislocation. 

Assassination of Anwar al-Sadat by Islamic extremists. 
Israeli invasion of Lebanon and expulsion of PLO to 
Tunisia. Up to 10,000 people killed in government 
reprisals after failed Muslim Brotherhood rebellion 
in Syrian city of Hama. 

Beginning of the intifada — a massive, popular 
uprising of Palestinians against Israeli occupation, 
spearheaded by stone-throwing children. 

Shaikh Ahmad Yasin, head of the Islamic Center in 
Gaza and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, 
founds Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement. 
Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s religious leader, 

“swallows poison” and accepts a ceasefire with Iraq. 
Death of President Zia al-Haqq of Pakistan in 
suspicious air crash. 

Publication of The Satanic Verses by British Muslim 
author Salman Rushdie. 

Muhammad Mahmud Taha, leader of the 
Republican Brotherhood and a reformer with Sufi 
leanings, hanged for “apostasy.” 

Fativa pronounced against Rushdie by Khomeini 
prevents detente between Iran and the West, despite 
the presence of pragmatists in the government. 

June: Khomeini dies and is succeeded as supreme 
religious leader by Ah Khamenei. 

In Algeria the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) wins 55 
percent of the vote in the regional elections. 

Invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. 
Operation Desert Storm, led by the United States 
with military support from Britain, France, Italy, 
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Pakistan, expels Iraqi 
troops from Kuwait. Shiite revolt in Iraqi cities of 
Najaf and Karbala brutally suppressed. 

Disbanding of Soviet Union after failed anti- 
Gorbachev coup leads to independence for the 
former Soviet Republics of Central Asia (under the 
leadership of ex-members of the Soviet 
nomenklatura). In Tajikistan rivalry between the ex- 
communist leadership and Islamist opposition leads 
to a bitter and costly civil war. 

In Algeria the FIS wins 49 percent of the vote in the 



first round of the general elections. The army 
intervenes to prevent victory for the FIS in the second 
round, provoking an eight-year civil war said to have 
cost at least 100,000 lives. 

1992 Farag Foda, the prominent Egyptian humanist and 

writer, gunned down by Islamists in Cairo. 

“No-Fly Zones” established in northern and 
southern Iraq to prevent Iraqi attacks on Kurdish and 
Shiite populations. UN sanctions imposed on Iraq 
lead to significant hardship among vulnerable 
groups, especially children. 

1994 Cheb Hasni, a popular rai singer, murdered in 
France. Tahar Djaout, award-winning novelist and 
editor, shot outside his home in Algiers. 

1995 More than 7,000 Muslims massacred at Srebrenica in 
Bosnia after UN fails to protect enclave from Bosnian 
Serb attack. 

1996 Taliban movement based on madrasa-educated 
students in rural Afghanistan captures Kabul. Its 
program of pacification bears harshly on women and 
minorities. 

1997 More than 60 European tourists massacred near 
Luxor by Islamists. 

Muhammad Khatami, former minister of culture, 
elected President of Iran. 

1998 Taliban fighters murder between two and five 
thousand members of the Shiite Hazara community 
after the capture of Mazar-el-Sharif. 

Al-Qaeda attacks the US Embassies in east Africa. 

1999 In Algeria Abd al-Aziz Bouteflika, former foreign 
minister, elected President on a program of 
reconciliation. 

Pro-democracy demonstrations in Iran suppressed by 
police and street gangs under conservative control. 
NATO bombing campaign forces Serbs to relinquish 
Kosovo, reversing “ethnic cleansing” of mainly 
Muslim Albanians. 

Russia bombs Chechnya on pretext of suppressing 
“Islamic terrorism.” 

2000 (February) Russians occupy Grozni, the capital of 
Chechnya. 

In Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf overthrows 
democratically elected government of Nawaz Sharif. 

2001 (September) Suicide hijackers linked to al-Qaeda attack 
the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon 
in Washington, killing approximately 3,000 people. 

US bombs Afghanistan, removing Taliban regime. 

2002 (October) Terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda kills 
more than 200 people, mostly Australians, in 
bombing of nightclub in Bah, Indonesia. 

2003 (March) US and UK attack Iraq without UN support, 
on pretext that Saddam Hussein is hiding weapons of 
mass destruction. No such weapons found. 

Islamist terrorists linked to al-Qaeda kill civilians in 
Casablanca, Riyadh, Istanbul, and other cities. 
(December) Saddam Hussein captured near his home 
town of Tikrit. 

2004 Reformists defeated in Iranian parliamentary 
elections after clergy-dominated guardianship of 



199 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Glossary 



Abd 



Adhan 
Ahl al-Bait 

Ahl al-ICitab 



Ahl al-Sunna 



A1 



Alawi 

Alid 

Alim 

Amir 



Ansar 

Asabiyya 

Ashura 

Aya 

Baraka 

Bast 

Baya 

Chador 

Dai 

Dar al-Harb 
Dar al-Islam 



“Servant” or “slave”; commonly used as a name 
when coupled with one of the names of Allah. See 
also Ibada. 

Call to prayer performed by muadhin (muezzin). 
“People of the household”; specifically used for the 
Phrophet’s family. 

“People of the book”; originally referred to Muslims, 
Jews, and Christians but came to include 
Zoroastrians and other groups prossessing sacred 
texts. 

“People of the Sunna” (Sunnis); those who uphold 
customs based on the practice and authority of the 
Prophet and his Companions, as distinct from the 
Shiites and Kharijis. See also Sunna. 

“Clan” or “House”; as in A1 Imran (3rd Sura of 
Koran), A1 Saud, etc. Not to be confused with al-, 
the definite article. 

Member of ghulu (extremist) Nusairi sect in 
northeastern Syria which venerates Ali. 

Descendant of Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the 
Prophet. 

See Ulama. 

“Commander”; originally military commander but 
subsequently applied to rulers and members of their 
families. Amir al-Muminin (“Commander of the 
Faithful”), a title held by caliphs and some sultans. 
“Helpers” of Muhammad native to Medina, as distinct 
from the Muhajirun who accompanied him from 
Mecca. 

Tribal or group solidarity; a term used by philosopher 
Ibn Khaldun in his theory on state formation in North 
Africa. 

The tenth of the month Muharram, when Shiite rituals 
are held commemorating the death of the Prophet’s 
grandson Hussein. 

“Sign” or “miracle”; used for verses of the Koran. 
“Sanctity” or “blessing” vested in, and available from, 
holy people, places, or objects. 

“Twelver” Shiite institution of sanctuary in mosques 
and other holy places. 

“Contract” or oath of allegiance binding members of 
an Islamic sect or Sufi tariqa to their spiritual guide. 
Traditional Iranian garment covering women from head 
to foot. See also Hi jab. 

“Propagandist” or missionary, especially in Shiite 
Ismaili movements. See also Dawa. 

The “realm of war” or those lands not under Muslim 
rule, where, under certain circumstances, a war or jihad 
can be sanctioned against unbelievers. 

“Realm of Islam”; originally those lands under Muslim 



Dawa 

Dervish 

Dhikr 



Dhimmi 



Din 

Dua 

Fana 

Faqih 

Faqir 

Fatwa 

Fidaiyyia 

Fiqh 

Fitna 



Ghaib 

Hadith 



Hajj 

Halal 

Hanafi 

Hanbali 

Haram 
Hi jab 



Hijra 

Ibada 
Id al-Adha 



rule, later applying to lands where Muslim institutions 
were established. 

“Propaganda” or mission. 

“Mendicant”; member of a Sufi tariqa. 

“Mentioning” or “remembering”; specifically used for 
Sufi rituals designed to increase consciousness of God 
which include the repetition of his name(s). 
Non-Muslim peoples afforded security of life and 
property under the Sharia on payment of a jizya (poll 
tax). 

“Religion” or “belief” as opposed to dunya (worldly 
existence). 

Prayer (additional to salat). 

The extinction of individual consciousness, and thus 
union with God, in Sufism. 

Exponent of fiqh. 

“Pauper”; term applied to ordinary member of Sufi 
tariqa. 

Legal decision of a mufti. 

Soldiers prepared to sacrifice their lives in the cause of 
Islam. Now used for guerrilla fighters. (Singular: fidai.) 
“Understanding” of Sharia, the system of jurisprudence 
based on the usul al-fiqh. 

“Temptation” or “trial”; the name given to the civil 
wars which broke out within the expanding Muslim 
empire during the first 200 years after Muhammad’s 
death. 

“Unseen” and “transcendent”; hence al-ghaiba, the 
“occultation” of the Hidden Imans in Shiite doctrine. 
“Tradition” or report of a saying or action of the 
Prophet. One of four roots of Islamic law. See also 
Sharia, Usui al-fiqh. 

The annual pilgrimage to Mecca. One of the five rukns 
(duties) of Islam, required of every believer once in his 
life if possible. 

That which is “permissible”, particularly foods which 
comply with Islamic dietary rules. 

Referring to the Sunni legal madhhab ascribed to Abu 
Hanifa. 

Referring to the Sunni legal madhhab ascribed to Abu 
Hanbal. 

A sanctuary, “that which is forbidden” by the Sharia. 
“Screen”, veil traditionally worn by Muslim women in 
public. Always covers the head, but not necessarily the 
face and hands. 

“Emigration” of Muhammad front Mecca to Medina in 
ad 622, the base year of the Muslim calender. 

Religious worship. 

“The festival of the sacrifice” on the last day of the 
Hajj. 



200 



GLOSSARY 



Id al-Fitr 
Ijima 

Ijtihad 

Ikhwan 

Ikhwan al- 
Muslimin 

Ilm 

Imam 

Iman 

Intifada 

Infitah 

Islam 

Isnad 

Jafari 

Jahl 

Jihad 

Jizya 

Kaba 

Kafir 

Khalifa 



“The festival of breaking the fast” at the end of 
Ramadan. 

Consensus of the Muslim community or scholars as a 
basis for a legal decision. Shiites interpret it as a 
consensus of Imams. 

Individual judgement to establish a legal ruling by 
creative interpretation of the existing body of law. See 
also Muijtahid. 

The “Brothers”, soldiers of Abd al-Aziz, founder of the 
Saudi dynasty, and adherents of the Hanbali reformer, 
Abd al-Wahhab. 

Muslim Brotherhood, a society founded in 1929 by 
Hasan al-Banna; originally aimed at reestablishing a 
Muslim polity in Egypt. 

“Knowledge”; in particular, religious knowledge, of 
ulama. 

“One who stands in front” to lead the salat, hence the 
leader of the Muslim community. In Shiite tradition, Ali 
and those of his descendants considered to be the 
spiritual successors of Muhammad. 

“Faith” or religious conviction. 

Uprising, especially of Palestinians against Israel in 
1900s and after 2002. 

The “opening up” of the Egyptian economy to the West 
in 1972, in the hope of attracting foreign investment. 
“Self-surrender” or “submission”; reconcilliation to the 
will of God as revealed to Muhammad. See also 
Muslim. 

“Support”; chain of authorities transmitting a hadith, 
thus guaranteeing its validity. 

Referring to the sole Shiite madhhab ascribed to the 
Imam Jafar al-Sadiq. 

“Ignorance”, hence jahiliyya (period of ignorance), or 
pre-Islamic times. 

War against unbelievers in accordance with Sharia. 

Also applied to an individual’s struggle against baser 
impulses. 

Poll tax levied on dhimmis in a Muslim-ruled society. 
Cubic building in Mecca containing the Black Stone, 
believed by Muslims to be a fragment of the original 
temple of Abraham. Focus of salat (prayer) and the 
Hajj. See also Qibla. 

“Disbeliever” or infidel who has rejected the message of 
the Koran. 

Caliph, the “deputy” of God on earth. In the Koran 
applied to Adam, and hence to all humanity in relation 
to the rest of creation; specifically applied to the early 
successors of the Prophet as leaders of the Islamic state 
or khilafa, and to the successors of founders of Islamic 
states or Sufi tariqas. 



Sufi hospice, mainly in areas of Persian influence. 
“Those who go out”; members of a group of 
puritanical Muslim sects during Umayyad and early 
Abbasid times. (Arabic plural: Khawarij.) 

“Fifth’, a tax of one-fifth of all trading profits, payable 
to mujtahids in Shiite areas. 

Sermon preached at Friday prayers. 

Black clothing or covering of the Kaba, renewed 
annually. 

“The book”, or religious scriptures. 

“Discourse” or “recitation”, the immutable body of 
revelations received by Muhammad. 

“Disbelief”, an ungrateful rejection of Islam. See also 
Kafir. 

School at which the Koran is taught. 

“Adopted policy”, specifically applied to five recognized 
systems of fiqh (jurisprudence). 

“College”, especially for religious studies. 

“Sunset”, hence the salat (prayer) at sunset. Also 
Muslim “Occident”, i.e., northeastern Africa, Morocco, 
for which the French transliteration “Maghreb” is 
commonly used. 

“Awaited One”; a Messiah and reformist leader who 
aims to restore the original purity of the Islamic faith 
and polity. In Shiite tradition the Twelfth Imam. 
Referring to the Sunni legal madhhab ascribed to Malik 
ibn Anas. 

“Known”, term used in the Koran for familiar and 
approved custom; hence, generally, “the good.” 
“Sunrise”; Levant. 

That which is “beneficial”; term used for the principle 
of public interest in the Maliki madhhab, adopted by 
modern legal reformers. 

“Birthday”; festival celebrating the anniversary of a 
religious figure. 

“Associates” or “clients”; status at first given to non- 
Arab converts to Islam. (Singular: Mawla.) 

Niche in wall of mosque indicating Qibla. 

Non-Muslim religious community within the Dar al- 
Islam. 

Expert on the Sharia, qualified to give fatwas (rulings) 
upon questions of law. 

Those who emigrated from Mecca to Medina with 
Muhammad. See also Hijra. 

Soldier fighting a holy war or jihad. (Plural: 
mujadidun.) 

Religious scholars sanctioned to make individual 
interpretations to determine points of law, especially 
among Shiite. 

Intelligence services, security police. 



Khaniqa 

Kharijis 

Khums 

Khutba 

Kiswa 

Kitab 

Koran (Quran) 

Kufr 

Kuttab 

Madhhab 

Madrasa 

Maghrib 

Mahdi 

Maliki 

Maruf 

Mashriq 

Maslaha 

Mawlid 

Mawali 

Mihrab 

Millet 

Mufti 

Muhajirin 

Mujahid 

Mujtahid 

Mukhabarat 



201 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Munkar 

Murid 

Murshid 

Muslim 



Mutazilis 



Nisab 

Pir 

Qadi 

Qibla 

Qiyas 

Ribat 

Risala 

Rukn 

Sadaqa 

Salaf 



Salat 

Sawm 

Sayyid 

Shahada 



Shaikh 

Sharia 



Shiites 



Shirk 

Shura 

Silsila 

Sufi 

Sunna 



“Unknown”; term used in the Koran for wrongful 
action as distinct from maruf: hence evil generally. 
“Aspirant”, or follower of a Sufi master. 

Sufi master. 

One who has submitted to God; a follower of the 
religion revealed to, and established by, Muhammad. 

See also Islam. 

“Those who stand aloof”; theologians belonging to the 
rationalist school which introduced speculative 
dogmatism into Islam. 

Minimum amount of wealth prior to assessment for 
zakat. 

Persian Sufi master. 

Judge administering Sharia. 

Direction of the Kaba to which Muslims turn while 
praying, hence the recess in a mosque which shows it. 
“Analogy”; the principle in jurisprudence used to deal with 
new situations not mentioned in the Koran or Sunna. 
Sufi hospice. 

“Report” or “epistle”. (Plural: rasail.) 

“Pillar’; one of the five religious duties prescribed for 
Muslims — hajj, salat, sawm, shahada, and zakat. 
Voluntary contribution of alms. 

“Predecessors”; appellation of the first generation of 
Muslims. Salafi: term describing the twentieth-century 
reform movement inspired by them. 

Ritual worship performed five times daily, one of the 
rukns (five pillars) of Islam. 

Annual fast and daylight abstinence during the month 
of Ramadan, one of the rukns of Islam. 

Descendent of Ali’s son Hussein. Sidi (local usage in the 
Maghrib) is applied to members of saintly lineages. 
Profession of faith whereby a Muslim declares his 
acceptance of God and his Prophet; one of the rukns of 
Islam. 

“Elder”; head of a tribe or Sufi master. 

“The path to a water-hole’; a name given to the sacred 
law of Islam which governs all aspects of a Muslim’s 
life. It is elaborated through the discipline of fiqh. 
“Party” of Ali, comprising those groups of Muslims 
who uphold the rights of Ali and his descendants to 
leadership of the Umma. 

“Association” of partners to the divinity; idolatry. 
Consultation. Majlis al Shura Parliament. 

“Chain” of baraka (inherited sanctity) or kinship 
connecting the leaders of Sufi orders to their founders. 
Follower of Sufism, the Islamic mystic path, from suf 
(wool) garments worn by early adepts. (Arabic: tasawwuf.) 
Custom sanctioned by tradition, particularly that of the 
Prophet enshrined in hadith. 



Sunni 

Sura 

Sultan 



Tahlil 

Taifa 

Takbir 

Tanzimat 

Taqiyya 

Taqlid 

Tariqa 



Tasawwuf 

Tawaf 

Tawhid 

Tawil 

Tekkes 

Ulama 

Umma 

Umra 

Usui (al-Fiqh) 



Wali 

Waqf 



Watan 

Wazir 

Zakat 



Zawiya 



See Ahl al-Sunna. 

Chapter of the Koran. 

“Authority” or “power”; actual holder of power, as 
distinct from the khalifa; later common term for 
sovereign. 

Prayer — la ilaha ilia allah (there is no deity but God) — 
particularly used in Sufi rituals. 

Organization of a Sufi order, as distinct from its 
spiritual path. 

The phrase “Allahu Akbar” (God is most great). 
Administrative decrees, reforms instituted by the 
nineteenth-century Ottoman sultans. 

Dissimultation of one’s beliefs in the face of danger, 
especially among Shiites. 

“Imitation”, or the basing of legal decisions on the 
existing judgments of the four Sunni madhhabs. 

“Path” of mystical and spiritual guidance. A term 
which also came to be applied to the organization 
through which a tariqa extends itself in Muslim society. 
See Sufi. 

Ritual circumambulation of the Kaba by a pilgrim 
during the Hajj or Umra. 

“Unity” of God. Central theological concept of Islam. 
Esoteric or allegorical interpretation of the Koran, 
predominant among Shiites. 

Sufi centers in Turkish-speaking areas. 

“Learned men’, in particular the guardians of legal and 
religious traditions. (Singular: alim.) 

Community of believers, in particular the community 
of all Muslims. 

Lesser pilgrimage to Mecca which can be performed at 
any time of the year. 

“Roots” or foundations of jurisprudence. In the Sunni 
madhhabs they comprise: the Koran, the Sunna, ijma 
(consensus) and qiyas (analogical deduction). See also 
Fiqh. 

“One who is near God”; a saint in popular Sufism. 
Pious endowment, originally for a charitable purpose; 
sometimes used as a means of circumventing the 
Sharia’s inheritance laws. 

“Homeland” or “nation”. 

Administrator or bureaucrat apponted by the ruler. 
“Purity”, a term used for a tax of fixed proportion of 
income and capital (normally 2V2 percent) payable 
annually for charitable purposes; one of the “five 
pillars” of Islam. 

“Corner”; building for Sufi activities. 



202 



GLOSSARY AND FURTHER READING 



Further Reading 



Ahmed, Akbar S., Living Islam — From Samarkand to Stornoway, 
London, 1993. 

Ahmed, Akbar and Donnan, Hastings (eds.), Islam, Globalization 
and Postmodernity, London, 1994. 

Ahmed, Leila, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a 
Modern Debate, New Haven, CT, 1994. 

Ali Abdallah Yusuf (tr.) , The Holy Quran (with commentary), 
Leicester, 1979. 

Al-Qaradawi, Yusuf, The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam, 
Helbawy et.al. (tr.), Indianapolis, ID, 1985. 

Arberry, A. J. The Koran Interpreted, Oxford, 1990. 

Armstrong, Karen, Muhammad: A Western Attempt to 
Understand Islam, London, 1991. 

Asad, Muhammad, The Message of the Quran, Gibraltar, 1980. 

Beinin, Joel and Stock, Joe (eds.), Political Islam: Essays from 
Middle East Report, London, 1997. 

Bell, Richard, Introduction to the Quran (1953), ed. and rev. W.M. 
Watt, Edinburgh, 1978. 

Blair, Sheila and Bloom, Jonathan, Islamic Art and Architecture 
1250-1800, New Haven, CT, 1994. 

Bouhdiba, Abdalwahab, Sexuality in Islam, Alan Sheridan (tr.), 
London, 1985. 

Cook, Michael, Muhammad, Oxford, 1983 

Coon, Carleton S., Caravan: The Story of the Middle East, rev. 
edn., New York, NY, 1961. 

Coulson, N. J., A History of Islamic Law, Edinburgh, 1964. 

Daftary, Farhad, A Short History of the Ismailis, Edinburgh, 1998. 

Denny, Frederick Mathewson, An Introduction to Islam, New 
York, NY, 1985 

Donner, Fred, Early Islamic Conquests, Cambridge, MA, 1982. 

Eickelman, Dale F., The Middle East: An Anthropological 
Approach, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1981/1989. 

Esposito, John L., (ed.), Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern 
Islamic World, 4 vol., NY, 1995. 

Ettinghausen, Richard, et ah, Islamic Art and Architecture 
650-1250, New Haven, CT, 2002. 

Geertz, Clifford, Islam Observed, New Haven, CT, 1968. 

Gibb, H. A. R., Bernard Lewis, et al. (eds.), Encyclopaedia of 
Islam, 6 vols., Leiden, 1962. 

Gilsenan, Michael, Recognizing Islam, London, 1983. 



Guillaume, A. (tr.), The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn 
Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Attah, Karachi and London, 1955. 

Hillenbrand, Robert, Islamic Art and Architecture, London, 1999. 

Hodgson, Marshall G. S., The Venture of Islam: Conscience and 
History in a World Civilization, 3 vols., Chicago, IL, 1974. 

Hourani, Albert, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, Oxford, 1969. 

Hourani, Albert, A History of the Arab Peoples, 2nd ed., London, 

2000 . 

Ibn Khaldun, The Muqadimmah: An Introduction to History, F. 
Rosenthal (tr.), 3 vols., New York, NY, 1958; ed. and abridged 
by N. Dawood, London, 1978. 

Keddie, N.R. (ed.), Scholars, Saints and Sufis: Muslim Religions 
Institutions Since 1500, Berkeley, CA, 1973. 

Lapidus, Ira, A History of the Islamic Peoples, 2nd ed., 

Cambridge, 2002. 

Mayer, Ann Elizabeth, Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and 
Politics, Boulder, CO, 1991. 

Mernissi, Fatima, Women and Islam: An Historical and 

Theological Enquiry, Mary Jo Lakeland (tr.), Oxford, 1991. 

Momen, Moojan, An Introduction to Shi’i Islam, New Haven, CT, 
1985. 

Peters, F. E., Muhammad and the Origins of Islam, Albany, NY, 
1994. 

Rahman, Fazlur, Islam, Chicago, IL, 1979. 

Richard, Yann, Shiite Islam, Antonia Nevill (tr.), Oxford, 1995. 

Rodinson, M., Mohamed, Harmondsworth, 1971. 

Rosen, Lawrence, The Anthropology of Justice - Law as Culture in 
Islamic Society, Cambridge, 1989. 

Roy, Olivier, The Failure of Political Islam, London, 1994. 

Ruthven, Malise, Islam in the World, 2nd ed., London, 2000. 

Ruthven, Malise, A Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on America, 
London, 2002. 

Said, Edward, Orientalism, London, 1978. 

Schacht, Joseph, An Introduction to Islamic Law, Oxford, 1964. 

Trimingham, J. S., The Sufi Orders in Islam, Oxford, 1971. 

Waines, David, An Introduction to Islam, Cambridge, 1995. 

Watt, W. M., Muhammad at Mecca, Oxford, 1953. 

Watt, W. M., Muhammad at Medina, Oxford, 1956. 



203 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Acknowledgments 



Map List 



Most of the essays accompanying the maps in this volume 
were written by Malise Ruthven, with editorial overview pro- 
vided by Professor Azim Nanji (with contributions on pages 
24—25, 66-69, 96-102), and 

Professor Nur Yalman and Kathleen McDermott. In prepar- 
ing the texts and maps special mention should be made of the 
works of two outstanding American scholars of Islam: 
Marshall G.S. Hodgson’s The Venture of Islam (3 volumes, 
University of Chicago Press, 1974) and Ira Lapidus’s magiste- 
rial A History of Islamic Societies (revised edn. Cambridge 
University Press, 2002). Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom 
wrote the texts and kindly provided the cartographical infor- 
mation for pp. 172—179. The following also contributed to the 
text: Dr Jonathan Meri (p. 36—37); Dr Nader El-Bizri (p. 
38—39), Farhad Daftari (p. 50—51); Dr Zulfikar Hirji (p. 
76—77, 152— 153); Safaroz Niyozof (p. 94—95); Richard Gott (p. 
116-117); Dan Plesch (p. 150-151, 164-165); Trevor Mostyn 
(p. 162—163, 192—193); Mustafa Draper (p. 166— 169); Nacim 
Pak (p. 188—189). Dr Abdou Filali Ansari contributed to the 
initial discussions concerning the choice of subjects. 

The publishers would like to thank the following picture 
libraries for their kind permission to use their pictures and 
illustrations: 

The Collection of Prince and Princess Sadruddin 
Aga Khan 10, 35, 173 
Bodleian Fibrary, Oxford 11 
Werner Forman Archive 16 

Hulton Getty Archive 17, 36, 44, 49, 53, 59, 62, 91, 101, 
102, 111, 112, 114, 118, 132, 146, 150, 152, 156, 160, 
169, 180, 185, 188, 193 
Corbis 21 

e.t. archive 24, 72, 82, 84 
Metropolitan Museum of Art 26 
Deutsches Archaiologisches Institut, Madrid 28 
Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Geneva 30, 74, 80, 94, 122, 
170 

Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris 31, 57, 64, 177 
Bildarchiv Steffens 39, 147 
Cartographica Fimited 40, 43, 76 
Bildarchiv PreuSischer Kulturbasitz 51, 172 
David N. Kidd 69 
Ianthe Ruthven 71 
D. Dagli Orti, Paris 78, 88 
Agence Rapho, Paris 87 

Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of 
Science 92 

Images Colour Fibrary 128 
British Museum 131 
Foto-Thome, Germany 167 
Dr Omar Khalidi 171 
Institut Amatller, Barcelona 176 
Mamoun Sakkal 195 

For Cartographica Fimited: 

Illustration: Peter A.B. Smith 

Cartography: Francesca Bridges, Peter Gamble, Isabelle 
Fewis, Jeanne Radford, Malcolm Swanston and 
Jonathan Young 
Typesetting: Jeanne Radford 

Picture Research: Annabel Merullo and Michele Sabese 



The World according to al-Idrisi 

549-1154 6/7 

Geography of the Muslim Fands 18/19 

Fanguages and Peoples of Islam 22/23 

Arabia before the Muslim conquests 25 

Muhammad’s Missions and Campaigns 

to 632 27 

Expansion to 750 28/29 

Expansion 750-1700 32/33 

Abbasid Empire c. 850 36/37 

Post-Imperial Successor Regimes 

late lOthC 40/41 

Post-Imperial Successor Regimes 

early llthC 42 

The Saljuq Era 44/45 

Military Recruitment c. 1500 46/47 

Fatimid Empire and other States c. 1000 50/51 
Empires and Trade Routes c. 1500 54/55 

Christian Crusades 56 

The Mamluk conquest of the 

coast 1263—91 57 

Sufi Orders 1145-1389 61 

The Muslim Near East 1127-74 63 

Mongol Invasions 1206—59 64/65 

Muslim conquests in North Africa and 

Europe 66/67 

Islamic Spain c. 1030 68 

The Christian Reconquest 69 

Plan of the Great Mosque at Kilwa 70 

East African Slave Trade to 1500 71 

Ghana and Mali Empires 73 

Jihad States c. 1800 74/75 

Trade Routes to 1500 76/77 

Indian Ocean c. 1580 80/81 

Indian Ocean c. 1650 80/81 

Indian Ocean 1800-1900 82/83 

Expansion of Ottoman Empire 1328—1672 

84/85 

Ottoman Empire 1683—1914 88/89 

The Dominions of Timur 94/95 

Muslim India 97 

The Mughal Empire 1526-1707 98 

India, Invasions, and Regional Power 

1739-60 99 

British Conquest of India 100 

Conflict over Kashmir 101 

Expansion of Russia in Asia 1598—1914 

104/105 

Expansion of Islam in Southeast Asia 

1500-1800 106/107 

Eurasian Empires c. 1700 109 

The Balkans 1914-18 113 

The New Turkey 1926 115 

European Imperialism in the 

Muslim World 116/117 

The Balkans, Crete, and Cyprus 

1878-1912 119 



The Balkans, Crete, and Cyprus 1912-13 120 
The Balkans, Crete, and Cyprus 1920—23 121 
China under Manchu Dynasty 1840—1912 123 
The Last Years of Turkish Rule 1882—1916 



124 

Sykes-Picot Plan May 1916 125 

League of Nations Mandate 1921 126 

Pledges and Border Changes 1920-23 127 

Invasion of Lebanon June 1982— September 
1983 127 

Nasir Khusraw’s Journeys c. 1040 129 

Travels of Ibn Jubair 1183—85 130 

Travels of Ibn Battuta 1325— 54 131 

Ottoman Africa c. 1880 132 

Northeast Africa 1840—98 133 

Africa after the Berlin Conference 1885 135 

Africa c. 1830 136 

Northwest Africa to 1914 137 

Pilgrim Routes of Arabia 138 

Plan of Mecca 139 

The Growth of the Hajj 140/141 

Early Baghdad 142 

Cairo at the time of Sultan Al-Nasir 143 

Cairo at the time of Ismail 1869—70 143 

Growth of Cairo 1800-1947 144 

Tashkent 145 

Oilfields and Pipelines in the Middle East 
and Inner Asia 147 

The Struggle for Water 1950-67 149 

Military Spending and Service c. 2000 151 

New States in Southeast Asia 1950—2000 153 
Mesopotamia 1915—18 154 

The Gulf War Phase 1 155 

The Gulf War Phase 2 155 

The Gulf War Phase 3 155 

The Afghanistan War and Soviet Retreat 157 
Arabia and the Gulf c. 1900 159 

Territorial Growth of the Saudi State 

1902-26 161 

The Six-Day War — Israeli Attack 162 

October War 1973 163 

The Intifada February-December 1992 163 



The Advance to Baghdad 20—30 March 2003 

164 

The Advance to Baghdad March-April 2003 

165 

Muslim Migration into the European 



Union 166 

Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries 168 
After World War II 169 

Islam Mosques by State 2000 171 

Islamic Arts 174/175 

Architectural and Archaelogical Sites 178/179 
Muslim Population in the World Today 

182/183 

World Terrorism 186/187 

Telephone Lines per 100 People 2001 190/191 



204 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, MAP LIST, AND INDEX 



Index 



Abbas, Shah (1588-1629) 92 

Abbasid/s 42, 36, 38, 40, 46, 52, 53, 148 

Abbasid Empire 11 

Abbud, Ibrahim (r. 1954— 64) 134 

Abdalla, Idris bin 40 

Abduh, Muhammad (1849—1905) 110 

Abdul Hamid II 88 

Abdullah 162 

Aboukir Bay, Battle of 108 

Abraham 30 

Abu Bakr 8, 28, 34 

Abu Dhabi 158 

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali 15, 58 

Abu Jafar al-Mansur 142 

Acheh 107, 152 

Acre 50 

Aden 53, 77, 79, 116, 158 
Adhan (call to prayer) 14 
Adrianople (Edirne) 115 
Afghanistan 12, 16, 96, 128, 156, 181 
Aghlabids 50 

ahl al-dhimma (protected community) 31 

ahl al-kitab (Peoples of the Book) 10 

Ahmad, Khan 111 

Ahmad, Mahdi Muhammad 110 

Ahmad, Muhammad 109 

Aisha 34 

Akbar I (1556-1605) 99 
al-Adid 51 
al-Aghlab, Ibrahim 37 
al-Azhar 111, 143 
Albania 118 
Alhambra 68, 176 
Almohads 68 
Almoravids 68 
al-Amin 37 
al-Andalus 68, 72, 108 
al-Ashari, Abul Hasan 39 
Alawi/s (Shiite) 127 
al-Azhar 38, 111 

al-Aziz, Abd (known as Ibn Saud) 160, 194 

al-Bakri, General Hasan 154 

al-Banna, Hasan 194 

al-Barmaki 37 

al-Bashir, General Umar 134 

al-Dawla, Nawab Siraj 108 

al-Din, al-Afghani, Jamal (1838—97) 110, 132 

al-Din, al-Ayyubi, Salah (Saladin) 50, 62, 143 

al-Din Aybeg, Qutb 96 

al-Din, Jamal 60 

al-Din, Naqshband, Baha (d. 1389) 95 

al-Din, Nur 62 

al-Din, Safi, Shaikh (1252-1334) 92 
al-Din, Salah (Saladin) 50, 62, 143 
Al-e- Ahmed, Jalal 93 
Aleppo 50, 52, 128 

Algeria/n 50, 90, 136, 137, 166, 180, 181 

al-Ghazal, Bahr 134 

al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid 58 

al-Ghazi-Ghumuqi 60 

Algiers 86, 109 

al-Hadi 36 

al-Hamid, Abd bin Badis (Ben Badis) 136 

al-Hasa 92, 160 

al-Hussien, Imam 38 

Ali 34, 40, 42, 50, 92 

Aligarh 110 

Ali, house of 30, 62 

Ali, ibn Abi Talib 38 

Ali, Mehmed (1805-48) 90 

Ali, Muhammad 132, 148 

al-Karkhi, Maruf 37 

al-Khattab, Umar ibn 38 

al-Kisai 36 



al-Mahdi, caliph 142 
al-Mamun 37, 38 
al-Mansur 50 
al-Mawsili, Ibrahim 36 
Almohads 68 
Almoravids 68 

al-Maududi,Adu al-Ala (1906—79) 194 
al-Muizz, caliph 50 

al-Mustansir, Imam-caliph (1036—94) 50, 128 

al-Mutawakil 39 

al-Nasser, Jamal Abd 148, 194 

al-Qaeda 152, 184, 185 

al-Qahira 50 

al-Qadir, Abd, shaikh 60, 109, 136 

al-Rahman, Sayyid Abd 134 

al-Rashid, Harun 36, 142, 160 

al-Saud, Muhammad 160 

al-Siquilli, General Jawhar 143 

al-Taishi, Abdullah, Khalifa 134 

al-Wahhab, Muhammad Ibn Abd 160 

Amanullah (1919-29) 116, 156 

Amboyna 81 

Amin 41 

Amu Darya 64 

Anatolia 64, 86, 92, 114, 118 

Anatolian 56 

Andalusia 68, 167 

Animist 107 

Aniza 160 

Amsterdam 167 

Antioch 

Arab/s 52, 64, 82, 107, 122, 137, 162 

Arab League 165 

Arabia 43, 106, 148, 158, 160 

Arabic 20, 38, 47 

Arab-Israeli conflict 162 

Arafat, Chairman Yasser 163 

Aral Sea 103 

Architecture 176, 177 

Armenia/n 36, 46, 87 

Asabiyya (loyalties or group solidarity) 12, 13, 21, 
104 

Ascalon 50 

Ashura 93 

Asir, province of 13 

Askeri (ruler) 87 

Astrakhan 102 

Aswan 70, 148 

Atlantic Ocean 11, 16, 21, 82 

Atlas Mountains 16 

Atatiirk, Mustafa Kemal 114, 115, 116 

Attila 64 

Aurungzeb (r. 1658-1707) 96, 99 

Austria 91, 114 

Axum 76 

Aydhab 53 

Ayn Jalut, Battle of 62 

Ayodhya 101 

Ayyubids 62, 79 

Azam, Abdullah 195 

Azerbaijan 36, 147 

Azeris 20 

Baath (Renaissance) Party 127, 154 
Babur 96 

Baghdad 44, 52, 142, 154, 165 
Bahasa Indonesia 20 
Bahrain 43, 78, 92, 158, 181 
Balakot, Battle of 109 
Bali 6, 152 

Balkans 47, 86, 87, 90, 118 
Balkh 128 

Bamba, Amadu (c. 1850-1927) 60, 141 
Bambuko 72 
Banda 81 



Bangladesh 153 
Baptist 13 

Barelwi, Sayyid Ahmed (1786—1831) 108 

Baring, Sir Evelyn (later Viscount Cromer) 132 
Barqa 50 

Basra 52, 116, 154, 155 
Batu (r. 1227-55) 94 
Bayazid I (r. 1389-1402) 94 
Baybars 62 

Bektashi (Sufi order) 112, 118 

Belgrade 86 

Belo, Muhammad 75 

Ben Badis 136 

Bengal 96, 101, 108, 139 

Bengalis 20 

Berber/s 20, 58, 72, 136 

bin Laden, Osama 157, 184, 195 

Biqaa valley 127 

Bithynia 84 

Birmingham, UK 167 

Black Sea 94 

Blue Nile 70 

Bolshevik Revolution (1917-18) 103 

Book production 173 
Bosnia-Herzegovina 118 
Bradford 167 

Britain 20, 53, 56, 80, 81, 91, 108, 109, 114, 116, 
125, 151, 158, 160, 162 
British Royal Air Force 160 
Broach 77 

Brunei, sultanate of 152 
Buddhism 10, 94 
Bugeaud, Robert 136 
Bukhara 95, 103 
Buksar, Battle of (1764) 108 

Bulgaria 84, 91, 94, 118 
Buraimi Oasis 158 
Bursa 84, 86 
Buyids 43, 44, 46 

Byzantine 11, 28, 56, 57, 78, 84, 86, 88, 118 

Byzantium 24 

Cairo 62, 128, 143 

Camp David (1979) 163 

Canada 15 

Cape Comorin 77 

Casablanca 6 

Caspian Sea 94, 102 

Catherine the Great 102 

Catholic see Christian 

Caucasus 46, 102, 117 

Ceramics 173 

Ceyhan 147 

Ceylon see Sri Lanka 

Chaghatay 94 

Chaghatay Khanate 64 

Chaldiran, Battle of 86 

Charlemagne 36 

Charles X (Bourbon monarch) 136 

Chechen-Ingushiite 104 

Chechnya 104 

China 52, 64, 76, 103, 129 

Chinese emperors 64 

Chistis 99 

Chistiya 96 

Christendom 56 

Christian/s 10, 13, 20, 30, 47, 57, 84, 86, 90, 117, 
118, 127, 151, 162 
Christianity 8, 10 
Churchill, Winston 109 
Cinema 188, 189 
Circassians 62 
Civil liberties 192, 193 
Cochin 77 

Communist Party 103, 117 



205 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Congress of Berlin 118 
Constantinople 24, 56, 86 
Cordoba 38, 68 
Council of Masjids 170 

Council of Muslim Communities of Canada 169 

Crete 118 

Crimea 90, 91 

Crimean War (1854— 56) 91 

Crusader 38, 108 

Crusades 56, 57, 129 

Ctesiphon 28 

Cyprus 28, 86, 118 

Cyrenaica see Libya 

Cyrenaican massif 16 

da Gama, Vasco 70, 79, 80 

Dahlan, Ahmad 111 

Dalmatia 90 

Damascus 38, 50, 114, 154 

Dan Fodio, Uthman (1754-1817) 74, 110 

Danube 90 

Dar es Salaam 6 

Daud, Muhammad 156 

Dayton accords 118 

Deccan 96 

de Gaulle, General Charles 136, 137 

de Reuter, Baron 92 

Deir Yassin (1948) 162 

Delhi 95, 96, 110 

Deng Xiaoping 123 

Deoband 99, 110 

Descartes, Rene 108 

Devshirme (military levy) 48 

Dhikrs (ceremony) 14, 58 

Dhufar 16 

Dinka 134 

Dipanegara, Prince 108 
Druze/s 125, 127 
Duas 14 

Durrani, Ahmad, Shah (r. 1747—72) 156 

Dutch 20, 53, 80, 81, 107, 108 
East Africa 70 
Ebro River 38 

Egypt 15, 16, 20, 36, 43, 86, 116, 139, 143, 148, 
151, 160 
Egyptians 163 
Elburz 16 
England see British 
English see British 
Eretz Yisrael 162 
Ernst, Carl 9 
Eritrea 116 
Ethiopia 70 

Euphrates River 16, 24, 52, 148 
Europe 162 
European powers 160 
European Union 149 
Faisal 126, 162 
Faqis (holy men) 70 
Farsi see Persian 
Fatima 40, 50 

Fatimid/s 15, 38, 41, 50, 56, 62, 79 
Feisal 114 
Fergana Valley 103 
Fez 130 

Fiqh (jurisprudence) 58 
First Crusade 45 
First World War 162 
FNL 136 

France 56, 81, 91, 114, 125, 136, 137, 151, 166 

Fulani 20, 74 

Fulfulde 72 

Funj sultanate 70 

Furu (revelation) 110 

Futa Jallon 74 

Futa Toro 74 

Galiev, Mir Said, Sultan 103 
Gansu 122 



Gao 52 

Garang, Colonel 134 
Gaza 163 

Gellner, Ernest 12, 21 
Genoa 56, 86 
Genoese 82 

Germany 56, 91, 114, 162 
Ghassanids 24 
Ghaznavids 43, 44, 46 
Ghenghis Khan 64, 94 
Ghulams 43 
Ghurids 96 
Gizeh 148 

Gladstone, William (British prime minister) 132 
Glasgow 167 
Goa 80 

Golan Heights 163 
Golden Horde 64, 94 
Golden Square 154 

Gordon, General Charles George “Chinese” 
(1833-85) 132, 134 
Gorno-Badakhshan 128 
Granada 68, 129 

Greece 24, 84, 86, 87, 91, 115, 118, 137 

Greek War of Independence (1821-29) 90 

Green Mountain 16 

Guangzhou (Canton) 52 

Guinea 72 

Gujerat 96 

Habbaniya 154 

Habibullah (r. 1901-19) 156 

Habsburg 90 

Hadith 9, 58, 110 

Haidar Ali 108 

Hajj 15, 26, 138, 139 

Hajj, Messali 136 

Hamas 163 

Hanafi/s 38, 123, 132 

Hanbali 38 

Hanbali school 160 

Hangzhou 52 

Hashemite kingdoms 160 

Hausa 20, 72, 74 

Hazaras 156 

Hejaz 50, 52, 70, 86 

Heliopolis 144 

Herat 95 

Hicks Pasha 134 

Hijaz 132, 160 

Hijra/s (migration) 26, 160 

Hindu 96, 99, 101, 104, 106, 108 

Hinduism 10, 99 

Holland see Dutch 

Hormuz 52, 80 

Hourani, Albert 20 

Hui 122 

Hulegu 65 

Human Rights 192, 193 
Hungary 86, 90, 94, 117 
Hussein, Feisal bin 117, 154 
Hussein, Imam 34, 62, 92 

Hussein (al-Tikriti), Saddam 93, 142, 146, 154, 164 
Ibadi sect 70 
Ibadism 34 

Ibn Aghlab, Ibrahim (Harun al-Rashid’s governor) 40 
Ibn al-Arabi 99 
Ibn Arabi 69 

Ibn Battuta 79, 129, 130, 131 

Ibn Hanbal, Ahmad 42 

Ibn Jubair (1145-1217) 129, 139 

Ibn Juzay (1321-c. 1356) 130 

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) 11, 12, 13, 160 

Ibn Majid 79 

Ibn Muljam 34 

Ibn Rushd (Averroes) 69 

Ibn Saud (Abd al-Aziz) 160 

Ibn Saghir 41 



Ibn Tulun 43 

Id al Adha (Feast of sacrifice) 15, 138 

Id al Fitr (Feast of fast breaking) 15 

Idris II 40 

Idris, Moulay 141 

Ifriqiya see Tunisia 

Ikhshids 43 

Ikhwan (brethren) 160 

Imam Hussein 92 

Imam Rida 140 

Imam Sayid bin Sultan (1804—56) 70 

Imam Shamil 60, 103 

Imam Yahya 116 

India 52, 95, 102, 106 

Indian Councils Act of 1909 100 

Indian Empire (British) 158 

Indian Navy (British) 158 

Indonesia 107, 151, 152 

Indus Valley 11, 16, 96 

Inquisition 68 

Internet 190, 191 

Iran 24, 31, 38, 92, 94, 96, 102, 107, 150, 154, 156, 
181, 184 

Iran-Iraq War 164 

Iraq 20, 31, 36, 38, 43, 90, 92, 95, 117, 139, 146, 
148, 158, 160, 181, 184 
Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC) 154 
Irtysh 102 
Isfahan 92 
Islamization 10 
Islamic Jihad 163 
Isly, Battle of (1844) 136 
Ismail, Shah (1487-1524) 92 
Ismaili/s 65, 71, 128 
Ismaili Fatimids 43 
Ismailism 96 

Ismail Pasha (r. 1863-79) 132 

Israel 162 

Istanbul 6, 48, 90 

Italy 56, 91 

Ithnashari Khojas 71 

Jadidists (advocates of reform) 103 

Jakarta 6, 107 

Janissaries 47, 48 

Java 20, 52, 79, 107, 117, 139 

Javanese 20 

Jerba 86 

Jericho 163 

Jerusalem 28, 56, 128, 149, 162 

Jewish 87, 90, 162 

Jewish settlement 117 

Jewish sovereign state 162 

Jews 7, 30, 57, 86, 92, 117, 162 

Jidda 53, 139 

Jihad/s 13, 72, 74, 109, 160 

Jizya (poll tax) 30, 99, 112 

Jordan 148, 150, 162 

Jordan River 148 

Judaism 10, 24 

Kaba 14, 138 

Kalmyks 145 

Kamal, Babrak 157 

Karakaya 148 

Karbala 38, 92, 140, 1 55 

Karzai, Ahmad 157 

Kashmir 96, 101 

Kazakh/s 21, 102, 122, 145 

Kazakhstan 103, 147 

Kazan 102 

Keban 148 

Kemal, Mustafa see Atatiirk 
Khalidiyya 60 
Khalwatiya 109 
Khamenei 93 

Khan, Abd al-Rahman (r. 1880—1901) 156 
Khan (resting places) 53 
Khaniqa (Sufi lodge) 53 



206 



INDEX 



Khan, Sir Sayyed Ahmed (1817—98) 110, 111 

Kharijis 34, 70 

Khartoum 132, 134 

Khatmiya 132 

Khomein 93 

Khruschev, Nikita 103 

Khums (religious taxes) 92 

Khurasan 43, 44 

Khusraw, Nasir (1004-c. 1072) 128 

Khutba 14 

Khwarzim 94 

Kilwa 70, 79, 80 

Kipchak 62 

Kirghiz 156 

Kitchener, General Herbert Horatio 134 
Koprulu, Ahmed (r. 1661— 76) 90 

Koprulu, Mehmed (r. 1656—61) 90 

Koran 9, 10, 20, 26, 38, 39, 42, 110, 148, 193 
Kosovo, Battle of 84 
Kubrawiyya 122 

Kuchuk Kaynarca, Treaty of (1774) 90 

Kurdish 47, 154 
Kurds 20, 155 
Kutama 50 

Kuwait/i 146, 155, 158, 164 

Kyrgyz 103, 122 

Kyrgyzstan 103 

Lahej 158 

Lahore 96 

Lake Van 128 

Lamtuna 72 

Lamu 52 

Latakia 127 

Latin see Christian 

Latin kingdoms 57 

Lausanne, Treaty of 115 

Lawrence, T. E. 114 

Lebanon 117, 127, 168, 181 

Lenk, Timur 94, 95 

Lepanto, Battle of 86 

Libya 91, 109, 116, 151 

Lille 166 

London 167 

Lyons 166 

Maan family 125 

Macedonia 84 

Madhabs (schools of jurisprudence) 13 

Madurese 20 

Mafia 79 

Maghreb 50, 72 

Mahdi (Muslim Messiah) 134 

Mahdiya 110 

Mahdiyya 50 

Mahmud II (r. 1807-39) 112 

Mahmud of Ghazna 96 
Mahmud of Ghazni 43 
Ma Hualong 123 
Majid 158 
Malabar 52, 77, 80 
Malacca 79, 80, 107 
Malaya 139 
Malay peninsula 107 
Malay/s 20, 107 
Malay states 117 
Malaysia 107, 152 
Mali 72, 131 
Maliki/s 38, 132 
Malindi 52 

Mallam (religious scholar) 74 
Malta 86 
Maluku 152 

Ma Mingxin, shaikh (b. 1719) 122 

Mamluk amirs 143 
Mamluk Empire 86 
Mamlukism 12 
Mamluk soldiers 62 
Mamluk sultans 53 



Mamluk/s 43, 46, 47, 62 
Mamun 41, 42 
Manchester 167 
Mansuriyya 50 
Manzikert, Battle of 45, 56 
Mao Zedong 123 
Marabouts 58, 72 
Maronites 125, 127 
Marseilles 166 
Mashhad 38, 141 
McMahon, Sir Henry 117 
McVeigh, Timothy 7 

Mecca 9, 26, 34, 43, 52, 72, 74, 92, 129, 138, 139, 
160 

Medina 9, 26, 36, 72, 74, 114, 139, 160 
Mehmet the Conqueror 86 
Mesopotamia 16, 86, 148 
Mesopotamian culture 24 
Mesopotamian cities 52 
Mesopotamian heritage 155 
Messali Hajj 136 
Metalware 173 
Mevlevis 118 

Mihna (inquisition or test) 38 

Minangkabau 107 

Mindanao 153 

Mocha 76 

Mogadishu 79 

Moldavia see Romania 

Mombasa 6, 70, 80 

Momens 71 

Mongol/s 58, 64, 84, 122 

Mongol Oirots 145 

Mongolia 64 

Montenegro 91 

Morocco 20, 60, 151, 166 

Moros 153 

Moses 30 

Mount Arafat 139 

Mount Lebanon 16 

Muadhdhin 14 

Muawiya 34 

Mubarak, Shaikh 158 

Mughal India 83, 107 

Muhammad 9, 26, 34, 42, 52, 58, 110, 160 

Muizz, Caliph al- 143 

Multan 96 

Mumbhai (Bombay) 6 

Muqaddima 11 

Murabits 72 

Muridiya 60 

Murids (aspirants) 60 

Murshid 60 

Musa, Ibrahim (d. 1751) 74 
Musa, Mansa (1307-32) 72 
Muscat 158 

Muslim Americans 170, 171 

Muslim Brotherhood 60, 134, 194 

Muslim populations 180, 181 

Muslim Students' Association 169 

Muslim World League 181 

Mutazila 38 

Muzdalifa 138 

Myanmar (Burma) 153 

Mysore 108 

Nabateans 24 

Nairobi 6 

Najaf 38, 140, 155 

Najiballah, General 157 

Naples 86 

Napoleon 90, 108 

Naqshbandi 95, 103, 104, 108, 111, 156 
Naqshbandiyya 60, 122, 167 
Nasridas 68 

Nation of Islam (NOI) 168, 170 
National Islamic Front (NIF) 134 
Nazis 162 



Nejd Plateau 160 
Nelson, Admiral 108 
Nestorian Christianity 94 
Netherlands 167 
New Sect 123 
New York 184 
Nigeria 75 
Nile 16, 53, 148 

Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region 122 

Nishapur 128 

Normans 50 

Norway 15 

Nuba Mountains 134 

Nuer 134 

Numairi, Jafar (r. 1969—85) 134 

Nurculuk 60 

Nursi, Said (1876-1960) 60 
Nuwas, Abu 36 
Oghuz 44 
Oghuz Turks 56 
Oklahoma City 7 
Oman 158 

Omani Albu Said dynasty 158 
Omar, Mullah Muhammad 157 
Omdurman 134 
Orthodox see Christian 
Oslo accords (1993) 163 

Oslo negotiations 149 
Oslo II negotiations 149 
Osmanli see Ottoman 

Ottoman/s 45, 46, 47, 83, 84, 86, 88, 109, 112, 117, 
154, 158, 160 
Ottoman Turks 162 
Oxus Valley 38 
Pahlavi 93 

Pakistan 100, 101, 107, 151, 154, 156, 157 

Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) 127, 163 

Palestinians 127 

Palestine 20, 50, 56, 117, 162 

Palmyra 24 

Pan-Turkism 104 

Parcham (non-Pushtun) 156 

Paris 166 

Patriot Act 193 

Pemba 70, 76, 79, 80 

People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) 156 
Persia 95 ( also see Iran) 

Persian/s 20, 38, 47, 122, 145 

Persian Gulf 158 

Petah Tikva 162 

Peter the Great 90 

Peter the Hermit 56 

Petra 24 

Philippines 153 

Pir (Sufi shaikh) 60, 95, 99 

Plassey, Battle of (1757) 108 

Podolia 90 

Poland 94 

Polo, Marco 129 

Pope Urban II 56 

Portuguese 53, 79, 80, 82, 106 

Prophet Abraham 162 

Protestant 108 

Punjabis 20, 101 

Pushtuns 20, 108, 156, 157 

Putin, Vladimir 109 

Qadariyya 60, 122 

Qadiri 103 

Qajar dynasty (1779—1925) 92 
Qaramatians 42 
Qaraqanid dynasty 43, 44, 46 
Qarawiyyin 38 
Qarluqs 43, 44 
Qizilbashis 92 
Quanzhou (Zaitun) 79 
Qulzum 53 
Qumm 38 



207 



HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 



Quraish, tribe 26, 79 
Quraishi pedigrees 70 
Qutb, Sayyid 194, 195 
Reconquista 68 
Ramadan 14, 15 
Rayy 128 
Red Sea 52 
Reza, Muhammad 93 
Reza, Shah 93 
Rhodes 28 

Rida, Rashid, Imam 111, 141 
Riffian Mountain 16 
Riyadh 6, 160 
Rome 167 

Roman Catholicism 7 
Romania 90, 91, 118 
Rumi, Jalal al-Din (1207-73) 59 
Russia 90,91,94,101,114,149,151 
Sabah 152 

Sabilla, Battle of (1929) 160 

Sadaqa (voluntary charity) 14 

Sadat, Anwar 163 

Safavid 83, 86, 92 

Sahara 72 

Sahil (shore) 72 

Salafists 111 

Salat 14 

Saljuq/s 38, 44, 46, 50, 56, 64, 84, 118 

Samanid 43 

Samarra 42 

Samarkand 95, 103 

Sammaniya 132 

San Remo Conference (1920) 154 

San Stefano, Treaty of (1878) 91 

Sanusiyya 60, 109 

Sarandib see Sri Lanka 

Sarawak 152 

Sasanian 24, 78, 148 

Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of 15, 146, 156, 157, 158, 
160 

Sawm 14 

Sayyida Zainab 141 
Sayyids 158 

Sayyid Said bin Sultan (1807-56) 158 
Scandinavia 56 

Second World War 104, 137, 150, 162, 164, 168 

Selim III (r. 1789-1807) 112 

Senegal River 74 

Senegambia 74 

Serbia 86, 90, 91, 118 

Serbian Revolt (1804—13) 90 

Seville 68 

Sevres, Treaty of (1920) 114 

Shaanxi 122 

Shafii 38 

Shahada 14 

Shamanism 94 

Shamil, Imam 103, 109 

Sharia 12, 21, 44, 95, 99, 107, 110, 112, 115, 148, 194 

Shariati, Dr Ali 93 

Sharif Hussein 160 

Sharif of Mecca 114, 154, 162 

Sheikhan 134 

Shiite Hazaras 157 

Shihabs (1697-1840) 125 

Shiism 92, 154 

Shiite/s 8, 9, 13, 34, 37, 90, 95, 96, 127, 140, 154, 
155 

Shiite Ismaili 50 
Shuaiba 154 
Sidon 127 
Siffin, Battle of 34 
Sijilmassa 40 
Sikhism 10 
Sinai 163 
Sindhis 20, 101 
Singapore 139, 152 



Siquilliyya (Sicily) 50 

Sirhindi, Shaikh Ahmad (1564— 1624) 99 

Slavery 158 

Slaves/slave trade 71, 74 

Socotra 76 

Sofala 53 

Sokoto 75 

Soviet Union 144 

South Arabian protectorate 158 

Spain 38, 167, Spain 184 

Spanish Morocco 116 

Spanish Sahara 116 

Sri Lanka 81 

Stalin 103, 104 

Sudanese 20 

Sudan People’s Liberation Movement 134 
Suez crisis (1956) 154 

Sufi orders 58, 60, 72, 74, 87, 92, 94, 96, 104, 107, 
110, 115, 118 
Sufism 37 
Sufi tariqas 109 
Suhrawardis 96 
Suhrawardiya 96 
Sulawesi 152 

Suleiman the Magnificent 86 
Sultan Mahmud II 48 
Sultan Muhammad V 137 
Sultan Muhammad VI 137 
Sumatra 52, 79, 117 
Sunni/s 8, 34, 38, 95, 96, 127, 154 
Sunnism 92 
Swahili 70 

Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916) 117 

Syr Darya 145 

Syria 20, 36, 43, 50, 53, 56, 86, 92, 95, 117, 139, 
148, 151, 163, 168, 184 

Tablighi Jamaat (preaching association) 110 

Tabriz 86, 92 

Tafsir (hermeneutics) 58 

Tahert 40 

Tahir 42 

Tahirids 43, 46 

Tajdid (reform) 110 

Tajikistan 103, 128 

Tajiks 103, 122 

Taj Mahal 176 

Takbir 14 

Talbot, Major 92 

Talha 34 

Taliban 157, 184 

Tanganyika 116 

Tangier 129 

Tanzimat-i Hairiye (auspicious re-orderings) 112 

Tariqas 60 

Tarmarshirin 94 

Tashkent 103, 144, 145 

Tatars 94, 102, 104, 122 

Tel el Kebir 132 

Terrorism 184, 193 

Textiles 172 

Thailand 152, 153 

Thanawi, Maulana Asraf Ali 100 

Thuwaini 158 

Tigris River 16, 24, 52, 142, 148 

Tijaniya 60 

Timbuktu 21, 52, 72 

Timur 95 

Timurid Empire 92 

Tipu Sultan (1705-99) 108 

Toledo 68 

Torodbe (scholar) 74 

Transjordan 117, 160, 162 

Transjordan Frontier Force 160 

Transoxiana 43, 46, 94, 102 

Transylvania 86 

Tripoli 91, 116, 127 

Trucial Oman Scouts 158 



Trucial System 158 
Tsarist Russia 158 
Tuareg 21, 72 

Tughluq dynasty (1320-1413) 96 

Tughril Beg, Sultan 44 
Tunis 86 

Tunisia 6, 36, 37, 50, 90, 137 
Turabi 134 

Turkey 60, 91, 112, 147, 151, 154, 158, 181 

Turkish ghulams 46 

Turkish nomads 64 

Turkish tribesmen 53 

Turkmen 156 

Turkmenistan 103, 147 

Turks 20, 56, 118 

Tusi, Nasr al-Din 65 

Tyre 50 

Uighurs 123 

Ukraine 94 

Ulama 58,74,110 

Ulugh Beg (r. 1404-49) 95 

Umar 8, 28, 34 

Umayyad 34, 38, 40, 68, 79, 176 

Umayyad Caliphate 68 

Umma 13 

United Kingdom 167 

United Nations (UN) 149, 162, 165 

United States (US) 149, 157, 164, 165, 168, 184, 

185 

Urabi Pasha 132 
Urals 102 
Urdu 20, 99 
Usui (fundamentals) 110 
Uthman, Caliph 8, 10, 26, 34 
Uzbekistan 103, 145, 147 
Uzbek 103, 122, 145, 156 
Venetians see Venice 
Venetian-Habsburg coalition 86 
Venice 82, 86, 118 
Vienna 86, 90 
Volga River 52, 64, 94, 102 
Wadi Hadhramaut 158 
Wahhabi 104, 110, 139 
Wahhabism 8 
Wahhabite 160 
Wahhabi 60 
Wallachia see Romania 
Waliullah, Shah (1702-63) 99 
Waqfs (charitable trusts/religious endowments) 92, 
102 

Wargala 40 
Washington 185 

Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) 165 
West Bank 163 

Wilson, President Woodrow 117 

Xinjiang 122 

Yahya, Zaidi Imam 116 

Yathrib see Medina 

Yellow River 16 

Yeltsin, Boris 109 

Yemen 16, 70, 158, 160, 181 

Yemeni 13, 167 

Yihewani 123 

Young Turks 114 

Yunnan 122 

Zagros 16 

Zahir Shah (1933-73) 156, 157 

Zakat (act of charity) 14, 92 
Zangi 62 

Zanzibar 52, 70, 71, 79, 80, 158 
Zaytuna 38 
Zionism 162 
Zirids 50 

Ziyara (visitation) 140 
Zoroastrian/s 10, 24, 30, 92 
Zoroastrianism 10, 94 
Zubaida 36 
Zubayr 34 



208 



— ISLAM— 

is the religion of 1,2 billion people, about one fifth of humanity. 
Originating In Arabia, it has spread to every part of the world, including 
Western Europe and North America. This timely atlas vividly Illuminates the 
rich and important history of the Islamic world, from the rise of Muhammad 
to the modem Middle East. Among the many topics covered are: 



Leaders nf Islamic 5 Some Islamic Scadcrs haw ruled humbly 
as earthly subordinates of God. while others have sought to interpret 
the Koran xo their own ends. 

Society under the Ottomans: Thu? Ottomans dominated, control ed. 
and shaped me societies they governed, regulating the status and 
d li L ies (Including the dross codes) of a I their subjects. 

SI ave - s o] ci i ers wh O b eca me rulers: iVia i n lu Its , who h eca me the ru err. 
oh Islam after the collapse of the Arab empire, had no ethnic, cultural, 
linguistic, or histor'cal connection with the peoples over whom they 
ruled. 

The alliance Of relltglcul and commerce: Society rented ro develop 
Outside tile purview of the state, with die utama — the religious scholars 
and experts on law merging with merchant and landowning families 
to form elites whose prestige was dependent on religious knowledge. 

L arges £ .Vlu slim population: Due TO- t h e h istoric spread 0 f Is lam Into 
the tropical regions ol south and southeast Asia, where intensive CXJlti- 
v at ion permits high population; densities, the nation with ihe largest 
number of Muslims is Lndones a, a country far removed from the sire 
of Islam's origins. 

Understanding Eslamic patriotism: Patriotism was focused rot Oil 
the city or nation, but on the clan or tribe I oyalties were further but- 
tressed by religion, with tribal leaders justifying their rebellions or 
wars of conquest by appealing to rbe defense of True Islam against 
its Infidel enemies. 

Who leads Islam 7 Islam lias no single centra authority, comparable 
to the Pope and Vatican for the Roman Catholic Church, or to various 
Genera Assemblies Rather, it is divided into many traditions and 

school 3.
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